Brave Girl

Twenty-one years ago today was... Amazing.

I was going into the hospital to be induced, and the night before I'd gone into the baby's room to pick out an outfit- something cute to bring her home in. Except that... I didn't think I was going to be bringing her home. I held up one outfit after another, unable to shake the feeling that had been with me for months. Something was not right. This baby was not going to come home with me in any of the cotton sleepers I was trying to select. I thought of leaving them all home. But what if I was wrong? What would I tell the nurses and doctors if I had nothing for her to wear? I chose something and shoved it in my bag. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe everything would be just fine.

One long night and about 5 hours of labor later, baby Elizabeth was born. She was beautiful and she cried with healthy lungs and I kept saying "Is she all right?" "Is she ok?" over and over as they washed her and dried her and handed her to me.

I held her and looked at her. She was here! She was--

Someone took her from me, saying she was too blue and needed to be suctioned. But it took too long, and suddenly there were people everywhere. Doctors, more doctors, and they were calling for help, and they took my beautiful baby and ran out of the room. All of them. And I lay there on the bed. Alone in the delivery room. And waited. And wondered what was happening.

I reached for the bedside phone and called my mom. I told her the baby was born, but during our call my o.b. came back in the room. He said "Something is wrong with her heart. I think it might be transposition of the great vessels, but I'm not sure. They've called for a helicopter. I'll send someone to get you." And then he was gone. I stared at the door. At the empty room. Hadn't I told him something was wrong with her heart? Hadn't I asked him to check? He'd said everything was fine. That all mothers are nervous about their baby being healthy. I thought of the cotton sleeper in my bag.

My mom and I cried together. And after I hung up I waited. And waited. I finally got up out of bed and made my way into the hall. Down the hall. Holding the wall for support. Because if my baby was going to be flown out on a helicopter, I was going to see her before she left.

A nurse saw me making my way down the hall and gasped, "What are you DOING?!" She grabbed a wheelchair and we went to find Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was in the middle of a room, lying on a flat surface with doctors around her. I watched them work. Our pediatrician was there and said he was putting in an arterial line through her umbilical cord. They'd taken x-rays and said they were pretty sure it was transposition of the great vessels, but they wouldn't know for sure until she got to Primary Children's. I had no idea what they were talking about. A helicopter team arrived and they began loading equipment and getting my tiny newborn ready for her first ride anywhere. I stopped a team member and asked what their training was. He told me. I asked if they would take good care of her and he assured me they would. And then they were gone.

I lay in my hospital bed and cried and tried not to listen to the squeaking of little nursery beds being wheeled down the halls to their mothers. My phone rang and it was a heart surgeon from Primary Children's. She told me it was definitely transposition of the great vessels and that they had to do surgery immediately if there was any chance of saving my baby's life. Would I give her permission over the phone- a verbal signature- for them to do the surgery? She explained that they would go in with a catheter and make a hole in her heart between the right and left sides so a little bit of oxygenated blood could get to her body. That was about all I understood. She was hurrying, wanting me to understand but also wanting to know right away if she could do the surgery. I gave her permission, then repeated the same thing on the phone to two more people, so there were 3 witnesses that I gave permission. They said they would call when the surgery was done. I think it took forever.

The next day I was released from the hospital and Mike drove me directly to Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC). It was the old PCMC downtown in a crumbling brick building with yellowed walls. I found my baby in a tiny bassinet with a breathing tube and IVs and not a stitch of clothing whatsoever. The nurses explained that they were giving her a medication that made her skin hurt if it was touched- thus the lack of clothing. I reached out a hand to her fingers and was told "no." Even my touch would cause her pain, and that would increase the stress on her heart. I could talk to her, sing to her, sit with her, but not touch her. At all.

The other mothers came over to meet me. The room was not very big and there were tiny bassinets and rocking chairs lining the walls. Someone asked where I lived and I gave them my address. They all stared at me with blank looks. Then one mom said, "Do you mean here? In Salt Lake?" I nodded and they all proceeded to tell me where they were from. Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada... I was shocked. "Where do you sleep?" "Here in the rocking chairs." "Don't they have beds for you?" "Only for the most critical patients in the hospital. We're glad they are not for us."

I told the nurse I was amazed at how dark-skinned Elizabeth was. She looked Native American. The nurse said, "She's actually very fair-skinned. It's just that she's blue from lack of oxygen." I stared and stared at my tiny baby, wishing I could feel her fingers wrap around my own.

I went home that night to sleep in my bed and to comfort my little Rachel who wanted to know when her new sister was coming home. And I thought of all those other moms sleeping in their rocking chairs beside their tiny newborns.

The following Monday PCMC was moving to the new hospital up on the mountain beside the U of U Hospital, and Elizabeth was scheduled to be the first patient moved into the new facility. We were waiting for her to be strong enough to live through the open-heart reconstructive surgery she needed. We'd been told she might be ready when she was about a week old. But she was still not breathing on her own, a sign that she was too weak for the major surgery. I signed release papers for her to be photographed for newspapers as the first patient in the new hospital and prayed for her to take a breath on her own.

On Sunday morning we went to see Elizabeth before church and-- the breathing tube was gone! The doctors said she had begun breathing on her own that morning, taking breaths when the machine was not pumping air into her lungs. I could hardly believe it. I still could not touch her, but I felt like my spirit was holding her, hugging her to me, cheering for her little tiny breaths.

When we walked into church, a 12 year old girl named Angela came to talk to me. "How is Elizabeth doing?" I told her the amazing news that she was breathing on her own! Angela smiled and said, "I knew she would get better today. I'm fasting for her today." I cried.

Surgery was scheduled for Elizabeth's 7th day of life. We were there early in the morning, waiting for them to come take her to the ER. And waiting. And waiting. And finally a doctor came and said they could not do the surgery because there was a problem with the air conditioning system in the brand new OR. I couldn't believe they would postpone a baby's surgery because of something as trivial as air conditioning, and said so.

It was then that I got a full understanding of exactly what they were going to do to my daughter. In order to rebuild her heart, they had to put her on bypass, meaning the blood would bypass her heart and be pumped by an artificial pump during surgery. But, the tiny capillaries that feed the heart's main vessels can not be sewn back together if blood is flowing at all. So for part of the surgery, they would turn the bypass off and let Elizabeth "die," no blood being pumped through her tiny body at all, so they could see what they were doing. In order to be able to revive her after this, they would need the room to be very cold, and her body would be packed in ice for the surgery.

Oh.

They flew in engineers from Minnesota to fix the cooling system of the OR. But if they didn't have it fixed in 2 days, the doctors said they would fly Elizabeth to Boston, to the place this brand-new surgery had first been performed just a few years earlier.

Two days later, on Friday morning, the air conditioning was fixed and Elizabeth had her seven-hour open heart surgery. That night the hospital staff offered me one of the beds for parents in the hospital.

She was in the post-op ICU. A tiny person nearly lost in the dizzying wall of tubes and monitors and wires. She had several nurses dedicated only to her. The surgeon had videos of her monitors linked to his house so he could go home and still see how she was doing. There was an area the size of a large room filled with equipment connected to her tiny self.

A nurse from another patient walked by and looked at her. "Is this Doctor X's arterial switch?" Someone said yes. The nurse looked at Elizabeth for a moment and then said, "Huh. He's getting better at his switches."

(I am so ashamed that I cannot remember her surgeon's name. Sometimes I can. Right now it's not coming to me.)

Two weeks later Elizabeth came home for the first time. She was only home for a day before she had to go back in for heart failure, but she came home again for a bit longer, and then for a bit longer, until she was off oxygen, recovered from heart failure and doing well. She managed to stay home a whole month- from 3 months old to 4 months old- and we decided it was all right to leave her for about an hour with a babysitter- a girl we trusted from church. When we got home the babysitter had shaken her and dropped her on the kitchen floor and that evening Elizabeth had brain surgery because of hemorrhaging. We were told she would probably never learn to read or write and that she may never learn to speak.

********** ********** ********** ********** **********

They were wrong. Elizabeth laughed and talked at early ages. She was not behind in anything. I came out of the bathroom one day to find she'd completed a 30 piece puzzle on the floor while I was in the shower. She was not quite 3 at the time. She loved books and learned to read early. Sometimes I found myself wondering what she would have been like without the brain surgery! But most of all, Elizabeth was kind. She loved everyone and had the tender heart of a peacemaker.

She was also afraid of some things. Like worms-- gummy or real-- and slippery slides. Yet she had a bravado about her little blond, pig-tailed self that was wonderful to see. I brought home gummy worms for the girls one day and Rachel ate hers and asked she could eat Elizabeth's. Elizabeth was sitting at the table on eye-level with the worms. "No," she said. "I'm going to eat them. Just not yet." I smiled and went to fold laundry. I came back almost an our later and there was Elizabeth, still eye-level with the worms. She finally let Rachel eat them.

Elizabeth would sit at the top of slippery slides for forever, staring down the slide as the kids behind her shouted, "Hurry up!" It was after one of these playground days that she told me, "You don't have to call me Elizabeth any more. You can just call me Brave Girl."

And she WAS brave! She overcame her fear of worms and slippery slides. She became Rachel's protector, going with her to ask for more napkins at McDonald's, going before Rachel into the dark bedroom, making Rachel's phone calls when Rachel was too shy, and all-around proving she was Brave Girl.

When she was four, she was back in the hospital with Cat Scratch Fever. We didn't know what she had- it took weeks to figure it out- and we were living in Saudi Arabia at the time. The CDC flew a doctor to Utah to examine Elizabeth, since everyone was afraid she might have brought some strange, new disease into the US. I was pregnant with Bethany at the time and kept crying about everything.

Elizabeth's IV blew in her arm and they moved it to her left had- a much more sensitive spot. She smiled after the IV was in and said, "The good thing about having my IV in my left hand is, I can still color!" The next day, on her way to some testing, her nurse accidentally ran over her IV with the wheelchair and pulled it out. They took her back to her room and put the IV in her right hand. Elizabeth stared at her crayons as they put in the IV. After it was in, Elizabeth looked at it for a moment. Then she said, "The good thing about having my IV in my right hand is... I don't have to taste the yucky medicine!" I burst into tears just as the doctor flown in from the CDC walked into the room to meet us. After several attempts to talk to me, during which time I kept catching my breath, only to begin sobbing again, he finally said, "Why don't I come back at a better time."

When he was gone, Elizabeth comforted me.

She grew tall and graceful and even more kind. Her medical trials continued. As she said one day a couple of years ago, "I must have signed up for the Medical Adventure Life." She played with her doll house and asked if we could get a wheel chair for the doll family. She turned their shed into the hospital and the doll children spent a lot of time having surgery and visiting the cardiologist. Elizabeth said she wanted to be a cardiologist or surgeon when she grew up.

And she told stories. Laugh-out-loud, side splitting stories, touching stories, silly stories, and thoughtful stories. On the way home from the dentist one day she told us, Bill Cosby-style, The Truth About the Dentist. I laughed so hard I had to pull over on the side of the road. When she got older, she began writing her stories down.

And she drew pictures. Amazing, pictures. I wish that I had framed several of them. She shows people in relationships in her pictures, often with rain. Her skill with a pencil or paintbrush is as great as her skill with words.

And now she is twenty-one! Brave Girl, lovely as Cinderella, a dreamer making her dreams come true, an incredibly hard worker, creative in everything she does, with a heart as kind as anyone who has ever walked the earth. I still wonder, as I did so many times when she was little, how I could be the mother of someone as amazing as she is.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth. I love you.

=)

What Runs 'Round in my Head

Surgery is rescheduled for April 4^th. Did I mention that already?

Naomi and Bethany are downstairs watching “Flipped” while Peter is upstairs practicing the violin and crying because he’s not watching the movie. Am I just mean? I don’t feel sorry for him. Am I supposed to? Instead of doing his school list today, while I was at the doctor he was on the phone-- for almost an hour. Peter is grounded from the phone. And has been for several weeks.

What is happening to my life? I feel like I’m falling into a black hole, things are getting weirder and weirder, the world is turning upside down, and all the while, I’m too dazed to do anything but tumble downward, heels over head, with a vague feeling that I might be about to crash into a nasty ending, or become spaghettified. And then I wander off to look for toenail clippers and wonder if there is anything for dinner, and if we really have to eat, or if we might just all float away.

Will I be stuck here forever?

I used to think there was a happy ending coming up- any moment now. Prince Charming was about to carry me off to his castle in the sky. Or at least in southern France. His staff would clean the bathrooms. My children would attend private schools with programs that would make Bethany smile, Naomi recover from kleptomania, and Peter become the charming young man he was meant to be. Prince Charming’s money would pay for it all. And I would wear cotton dresses and entertain guests in the gazebo out back after a day of horseback riding along the beach with my husband. At night we would lie in bed and hold each other and it would be amazing because we were so in love. On holidays we would take little trips to Turkey and the Maldives.

I’m afraid that’s not happened. Frozen pizzas and moldy caulking have been my lot. And I don’t see an end in sight. I’m beginning to feel as if I’m waking form a dream of published novels and cute little houses (let alone southern France) and seeing that if I don’t get a real job, we are going to starve. I’ve dropped all the kids’ classes. No more music, dance or online history classes. I don’t even usually check their schoolwork. We are dangerously close to unschooling. I find myself thinking that a day on the computer with a guitar playing Taylor Swift songs might pass as a good education. What will become of these kids? I started homeschooling because I thought public school was a joke. My kids needed something more rigorous. Now I’m happy if they put in a good half hour with a workbook.

But what is the alternative? Traditional life? We all leave in the morning and come home exhausted at night to eat our frozen pizza, take a shower with the moldy caulking and drop into bed exhausted, just to get up with a buzzer and do it all again? I believe I would lose the particle of sanity I have managed to hide away under my bed. And covered in dog hair though it is, I don’t want to lose it.

I dream of running away to Europe and living out of a suitcase as we travel from place to place. No mortgage payment. But also no solitude. When would I be alone? How could I ever write anything? Then I imagine a lighthouse on the shore where we pick blueberries and the kids climb about on the beach while I write. Notice the lack of school in these fantasies. Notice the lack of dinner and laundry and reality. I am still a dreamer, wandering down the road, late, but unaware of clocks and mundane things like money. The clouds are lovely. And perhaps those pink blossoms could fall, spinning, like rain or stars, and light my path, carpet my world. I hear water running and remember the kitchen ceiling leaks if water falls on the kids’ bathroom floor. Not only do I not know how to fix it, I do not have time nor money to fix it, and I don’t even want to fix it. There is something romantic about having to put a pot on the kitchen counter every time someone showers. Eventually the ceiling will rot and fall into a pot of tomato soup. But perhaps by then I will have moved out.

Reality. If I pretend it is not real, perhaps it will go away.

And then we’re back to the dreams of Prince Charming, southern France, touring Europe and lighthouses in Maine. And the reality that depending on how the divorce settlement goes, I might be right here—leaky ceiling and all—for the rest of my life.

I’ve got to take matters into my own hands. I’m going to go order church magazines. One tiny step for reading material. One giant leap in the right direction.

(sigh) at least I hope it is.

Surgery. Or not.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes things don't go as planned?

I got to Potomac Hospital at 6 am and changed into a cute little dress with ties at the back, a pair of leg-strangling tights with holes on the soles (for what?) and totally stylish blue paper slippers. A nurse made four (4!) attempts at getting the IV in my arm, and finally got blood to flow freely. Others poked and prodded and took blood and hooked up monitors.

And then the anesthesiologist came in. He's probably a reasonably intelligent guy. After all, he did make it through medical school. But we were having a communication problem. Somehow the message that my doctor had already checked with Potomac's anesthesiology department about my issues with medications, and that there was "No Problem," did not get passed along to this guy. Or maybe he wasn't listening when they told him. I'm betting on the "Not listening" option, since that's what he did with me. I tried explaining my history, and he repeated a garbled version back to me. I tried correcting him and he interrupted. Eventually he summed up his understanding. "You want me not to give you anything, but you still want to be unconscious for the surgery." No! I told him that was not it at all! I just need smaller doses. A lot smaller. And there are a few things I can't have at all. But only a few. Not most.

He left and I hoped he was Googling what to do with me. If he'd brought me a computer, I could have shown him. When he returned he announced he had a solution. He would do an epidural. I blinked and said, "There is something else you should know. I have really bad scoliosis." He told me to bend forward so he could see my back as I explained that I have four curves, that I don't know the degree of any of them anymore, but that they're not single digits. He ran his finger along my spine and exclaimed. Then he left the room again.

He did not come back.

It was my doctor came in and said, "The anesthesiologist is saying we have to cancel your surgery. He won't sedate you. I can't sedate you. I can't make him sedate you. And I can't operate with you awake."

I had seen it coming. I asked if I could talk to my mom for a minute. The doctor said yes, and left my mom and I alone.

Now, let me explain something. Yesterday (was it really only one day ago?) I got a call in the morning from my doctor's nurse asking if I'd heard that my surgery was canceled. I hit the roof of my car and proceeded to tell her that not only did I not know that, but my mom was about to board a plane in Salt Lake to be here for the surgery. She said she'd ask the doctor to call me. I didn't wait for the call. I hit the gas and tried not to run any red lights as I called my mom and told her not to get on the plane while driving to my doctor's office, where I demanded to see the doctor RIGHT NOW!

She came in and explained that she'd misread my ultrasound and could not do the surgery she'd explained to me, and did not want to switch procedures without checking with me, had not pulled my chart to remember who I was or what the situation was, and simply told the nurse to reschedule so we could have a chance to "chat." But, since I had conveniently shown up in her office, (!!!) we could go ahead on Tuesday, as long as I was ok with a different procedure. She was very apologetic, and I agreed that the surgery needed to be done. I called my mom, told her to go ahead and get on the plane, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Big mess fixed. Or so I thought.

Now, I looked at my mom. "What can we do? You came all the way out here." She pointed out that there was nothing we could do about that now. And really, if the guy has no idea what to do with me, it's better for him to admit it now, rather than when I'm dead.

I called my doctor back in and said the only thing I could. "Ok. I'll go home."

She said I should "probably go to a major medical center, where they... um... I don't want to say they know more. But they might... umm... well, be better prepared to handle..."

I just nodded. Right.

So, now I'm home. And my mom is here for two weeks. Tomorrow I'm picking up the records of whatever it was that happened today. It should be interesting to read the official version. "Psycho woman tried to convince me to let her into the OR without any anesthesia." Whatever. I'll take them with me when I go to meet with anesthesiologists at other hospitals in the area, on my quest to find someone who knows how to knock me out so my internal organs can be removed.

Ok. Maybe the psycho part isn't too far off.

But at least I get to have my mom here! And if I'm not on bed rest for the whole time, maybe we can go do something fun together. =)

Ugh! Templates!

So, just a quick rant. I am not a computer programmer, but neither am I completely technically challenged. That said, I am having serious difficulties with my blog templates.

Cutest Blog on the Block is where I usually get my templates, but a few months back this stopped working. I didn't have time to struggle with it, so I went with a boring and generic template from blogger.com.

Today, however, I took some time to try to get this worked out, since I really do want a cute Christmas background.

AND

IT

IS

NOT

WORKING!

Ugh. Anyone have any ideas?

On Getting Divorced

It has been quite a while since I have posted here, not because nothing has happened, or because I don't have time to write, or because I don't want to share my thoughts. Actually, tons of things have been going on, I write for several hours most days, and I would love to share my thoughts.

But I censor myself. All the time. In everything. For example:

I filed for divorce last month. This was a major life event (clearly)- along the magnitude of marriage, a birth or death in the family. But what would I say on a blog, where the whole world can read it, that would not offend or hurt someone, somewhere? I mean- someone I know personally and care about. (I realize people in China that I don't know- I'm not referring here to the people in China I care about very much- read my blog, (I'm not sure why, but they are welcome) and if I offend them with my thoughts on marriage and divorce, well, life goes on.) But how about my family? My in-laws? My kids?

And so I am silent. As I have been on many subjects. For many years. As I write this I hear Taylor Swift in the back of my mind saying, "Speak Now!" Yes, well. She's not getting divorced, is she? If she ever does, I expect she will make millions selling albums about it. And I will buy them and sing along with her and cry.

So, what have I been doing? Thinking? Not talking about?

I've been wondering how to settle a divorce. What do I ask for? What do I accept is just not going to happen? What is worth fighting for- if anything- and what is not? Do I have to have an attorney with me along the way? Or can we work this out ourselves in a way that won't hurt me and the kids in the long run, and bring the attorneys in to sign everything off at the end?

I've been trying to come to grips with life as a single mother. Some things I expected as part of this package deal- like doing the laundry myself. (Mike used to wash and dry the clothes.) And some things I've been surprised by- like the hollow feeling I get when I fill out a form and the "Father" information side stays blank. Or the way people look at my left hand, and then at my kids, and give me a look that says they have misjudged my entire life in 15 seconds and placed me into a box where I don't belong.

Or, where I hope I don't belong.

I have been cleaning out the house. Getting ready for the inevitable move that has to come some time. Throwing away some of the junk we accumulate by living in the same house for 8 years. When we moved here, it was the 21st house we had lived in, and we had been married 18 years. (Counting every place we lived for 3 months or longer) It's amazing how much junk we can hold onto when we are not forced to clear it out. Do you know I still had baby socks in the sock bucket? And my youngest turns 13 next week!

I have been looking at families. Watching husbands and wives interact. Comparing and measuring myself against them. Did I speak that kindly to my husband when he was here? Am I gentle like that with my children? Where do I need to improve? What will my kids remember when they are my age? And I've been keeping a careful mental thermometer on my kids, watching for signs of distress in the midst of their lives being turned upside down. Ready as I can be with the emotional Tylenol and hugs. Hoping I can do this all myself.

I have spent a lot of time thinking. A bit of time crying. Much time in prayer. Several hours in the car with my kids and heavy doses of Taylor Swift. Not as much time as I should spend cleaning the house. A few hours a day writing- usually my endless YA novel, but occasionally something else sneaks in. At least a few hours each month in the temple. A sprinkling of moments, like sugar dusted on cake, visiting with friends in person or via email. And moments here and there staring at the sky and wondering how life got so wonderful. And complicated. And painful. And perfect. All at the same time.

And being surprised that I can feel peace and happiness these days.

That's what I have been up to. How about you?

Extreme Multitasking!

When I was in Morocco in highschool I thought I had multitasking down. I could curl my hair with one hand while tying my shoe with the other, and pause to spray a cockroach with hairspray, all while singing along with my cassette. Yes. It kills them. The hairspray.

And when my kids were little, I could fix dinner while listening to a rambling story from a three year old ("Let me tell you about when I was 26!"), watch the child at the table do her homework, and write a grocery list all at the same time.

Then came the mom-of-teens, homeschooling years. (I'm still in this stage.) And I found this was a skill that could be taken to new levels. Teach them to drive while taking someone to dance, while texting the daughter at home to see if dinner is in the oven, while making sure junior in the back seat is doing his math.

And then... throw in being a single mom! And what do you get? Extreme Multitasking! The all new, high thrill sport for moms with negative time!

Consider Saturday.

Plans had already been derailed by 9 am when I realized Bethany had to see a doctor asap for her asthma. The pediatrician's phone was totally not working- so plan A (call for a refill of her inhaler Rx) was not going to work. We put plan B into effect: Insta Care place. Should be quick. All we need is a script for an inhaler.

After over an hour sitting in the room waiting for the doctor and listening to my daughter wheeze, I stick my head in the hall to find the doctor lounging with the nurse, going through an iHop menu. But I digress. My point is not about doctors and nurses and iHop-- although that could be a subject for another post. The point is, we missed the violin group lesson we were supposed to be to, and by that afternoon I realized the inhaler was not going to be enough. She needed a trip to the ER for nebulizer meds and steroids.

I figured all this out about 1 pm as I was putting dinner in the oven. (New meal plan! More on this later.) And at 2 pm I was supposed to be meeting for the first time with the girl I will be tutoring this year. First impressions being what they are, I didn't want to start off the year with, "Umm... I'll be a little late. Or, actually, probably very late. Depending on the doctors at the ER. And the iHop menu." But I also didn't want to leave Bethany home, unable to breathe. "Just call 911, sweetie, if you get any worse. Or text me. I should be home soon."

My plan? Throw all three kids in the car, call the tutoring family while driving to their house and ask if I can stop by a little early (a better first impression than being several hours late), then call a friend to see if the younger two can hang out with her while we're at the ER. Drop the kids off at the friend's house after the tutoring meeting, then hit the ER.

I tell kids to get on shoes and grab books to read while dialing my friend. I get her answering machine and start leaving a message, wondering if she's home but couldn't find the phone. Where could she be? Then, mid-sentence- I remember. She's gone for the day and asked me to take her dogs out around lunch time or 1 o'clock! I sputter something about having a good day and hang up, then run upstairs and grab the DS games. Apparently the kids are all going to the ER. Whoopie!

In the car, I call the tutoring family, who sounds a bit confused but says, "Umm, sure. I guess now would be fine." Thank heavens.

I park 5 houses down in the only spot of shade on the street and leave the key with Bethany and instructions to turn on the AC if it gets too hot. She's wheezing, but nods. I sprint past 5 houses and tell the grandma watering her roses, who looks like she's expecting me to stop and talk, that I'm just borrowing her neighbor's shade, and that her tiny white dog with a pink bow in its hair is cute.

The tutoring family is great. Nice daughter. Nice mom. Really nice house. 15 minutes later I'm back out the door, past Grandma, the roses, and Poopsie, and in the car. Bethany's eyes are closed. I peal out of there, heading to my friend's to take out the dogs before the ER.

But... As I'm driving up Cardinal I suddenly see my oven in my mind. And the casserole I'd put in the oven just before realizing Bethany needed to go to the ER. Ack!

I drive home, watching for police in my rear-view mirror, run inside and grab the casserole out of the over. It was only slightly more brown than was intended. I set it on the counter and stared at it. Do my kids actually need to eat?

This is where I explain our new meal plan. We eat our big meal-- the all-together-dinner-type thing-- around 3 or 4 pm. This makes sense for lots of reasons, not the least of which is because that's the only time we're all home. Then we have cookies and milk or microwave popcorn or a quick frozen pizza around 9 pm when we're hungry again. It works for us. At least that's the theory. I just started it on Saturday.

So, I'm staring at the casserole. Chicken and broccoli. I run through all the possible scenarios in my mind, and decide the best plan is to just take it with us.

So I grab a couple of dish towels to put it on, pick up the Costco-sized bag of paper plates (no time to count them out), grap a handful of plastic forks and one plastic spoon, and run back to the kids waiting in the car.

"What are you doing?"

"Bringing dinner. Why?"

"Do you expect us to walk into the ER with a casserole?"

"Don't be silly. We're going to eat it while taking out our friend's dogs."

"If there is any left over, can I bring it to the hospital? I'll eat quietly."

We let the dogs out while eating our casserole on paper plates in our friend's house while Bethany lay on their couch and wheezed and I calculated how much I'd make from tutoring and called back the electrician about the lights in the front room while watching out the window to see if the dogs had done their thing yet. The plastic spoon made a decent serving spoon, and the tiny size kept our portions small. I made a mental note to try this at home for myself as I told Peter to refill the dogs' water dish, told Naomi to call the dogs inside, and I checked to make sure Bethany was still breathing.

And I thought about the fact that, although I really miss my calling in the stake Relief Society, I was glad I was not one of the people in charge of the reception that evening.

This is my life. Not too unusual. For our house, anyway.

When Bethany was well-medicated, the casserole was gone, and the kids were back home with instructions to practice the violin songs they'd missed at the group lesson that morning, I put on a skirt and went to the reception. I arrived just as it was ending and wondered if my hair was still sticking out in back like Bethany had said it was in the ER. Probably so.

My friends smiled and said, "How are you?"

And I smiled and said, "Fine. Kind of a crazy day."

And they nodded. "I know what you mean."

And I wondered if they really did.

The Story of Carly

My cat is curled up beside me, resting her tiny chin on my foot. Her eyes are closed and her breathing is in slow little breaths. At moments like this, even if my computer is about to die because it's not plugged in, or I am so desperate to go to the bathroom that I'm squirming, or the pizza is burning in the oven, I look at her and think, "But I don't want to disturb her!"

I know people get carried away with their pets. Dogs getting manicures and cats with an entire wing of the house to themselves seem a bit much when we are not the ones in love.

This particular cat came to us in an unusual way. We drove to church one Sunday morning in April, and after services, we drove home again. When we got out of the car, my family members said, "What is that noise in the engine?" I groaned. Car trouble. Great. I informed them that I did not even want to know about it and went inside to change out of my dress. A moment later one of my kids was banging on my bedroom door shouting, "Mom! You've got to come see! It's a cat!" My eyes flew to the bedroom door. Oh, this is going to be a mess, I thought. A cat got stuck in our engine? And the kids are down there to see it? I steeled myself, prepared to be the brave mother who holds her traumatized children as they weep over dismembered kitty parts.

But when I got downstairs, there was my husband, leaning into the greasy car engine in his white church shirt, saying, "It's all right, kitty kitty." This is the same man who had claimed for years not to like cats. Until he rescued our grey cat, Brigitta, who had been hit by a car, and spent thousands of dollars to have her restored to health. His story that he couldn't stand cats began to unravel after that. And now he coaxed a tiny, tiny kitten out of the engine of our car, where she had been sitting in one of the few places where she could have lived on the five mile ride home. I breathed a sigh of relief. She was all in one piece.

And she was tiny! I mean, even for a kitten. She fit in the palm of a child's hand and mewed so pitifully that we were all making little squeaky sounds back at her out of sympathy. Someone got some milk and someone else got a few bits of cat food. The kitten tried to eat a piece of the food, but she was so small that it was like watching a two-year-old try to fit a whole Five Guys hamburger in their mouth and then chew. I did some quick emotional calculations and realized there was no way this kitten was going anywhere. Darn it all.

We already had two cats and a dog, and though I was feeling animal overload, I felt like we were still within the "normal" limits of animal ownership. But THREE cats? That's getting a bit fanatic. And yet, look at her! they all exclaimed. She fit in a tea cup. I know, because they put her in one and took pictures. Rachel carried her in the pocket of her bathrobe, where the kitten slept with her head just poking out, resting on the lip of the pocket. And Bethany claimed ownership, bringing the kitten to sleep on her bed with her. How could I say, after she lived through a ride home in our engine and had been fed milk with an eye dropper and slept on Rachel's pocket, "Nah. Take her back to the field beside the church. Or drop her off at the shelter." So, we acquired a third cat. We named her Carly, since she was found in the engine of the car.

Something about being raised by people made Carly into a different beast. She is fine with having people maul her. Her paws, which most cats will not let anyone touch, are so soft, and she just lays in our arms like a baby and closes her eyes as we stroke them. She talks to us, mewing and making little sounds in her throat to communicate things like, "Milk would be good! It's right in this fridge!" and if she gets stuck in the garage overnight or shut in the bathroom for too long, she tells us all about it when she gets out, talking and talking and asking to be held and comforted after her traumatic ordeal. She loves our dog, Heidi, and rolls all over Heidi's muzzle and licks Heidi's face until the dog can stand no more and gets up to walk away. And anytime we're gathered as a family, Carly comes to join us. She is there for scripture reading, bedtime stories, songs and prayers, and any other time we are all together, curled up beside us with her eyes closed, looking like the world is a good place.

She is still small for a full-grown cat, although it's been a few years since we found her. And Bethany still hauls her around, snuggling her and exclaiming, "She is so CUTE!" when she find sher asleep somewhere. Right now, Carly is curled beside my feet, looking like she is sound asleep-- until I lean over to look at her more closely. Then her ears turn toward me and I know she's just resting, apparently enjoying my company as much as I enjoy hers.