the ramble

this makes me smile

have you read the Hunger Games series?

if not, you should!



i for one like cable, but these direct tv commercials are comical.
maybe because i have a feeling i will have a grandson with a dog collar.

anyway. Presley and Miley have a new thrill, they stick out their tongues and touch each others tongue. similar to a kiss i guess. weirdos. they were doing this in the tub the other night and i tried to catch it but instead i got a fine example of Mileys temper.

i have had one of those weeks where i feel persecuted from multiple angles.  i have been reminded how much words can hurt.  how you cant take those words back once they have been spit out.  there was a time when i would have been very quick to spit back. thankfully after the anger stage i heard the Holy Spirit clear his throat and whisper this...

I am the True Vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  You are already clean because of the words I have spoken to you.  remain in Me and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the Vine. neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me...this is to my Fathers glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.   John 15

so i am choosing to focus on the things above and allowing God to handle the rest.  satan always beefs up his game when you are threatening him...maybe that means im doing something right.

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i think i will...

we will just start calling this "the ramble"

a couple of things i thought i should share.

despite this, i still love the precious family members that give my girls bathtub crayons

stuffed bears come with directions.  i had no idea.  but if your husband decides to read the directions while on the toilet you too would know that you can go online and program these things to say your child's name. Miley loves it.

Brook and I often have the conversation of how the generations have changed.  when we were growing up our parents didn't say butt, or fart and they certainly didn't do it in front of anyone.  they didn't pick their nose or at least they didnt admit it.  we on the other hand have a family rule that you can only "poot" or pick your nose in the car or at home (not at a restaurant).  sadly it is such a natural thing around here that we had to make a rule.  and we never ever went over to our parents friends house and did this; and its not weird, its the expected shenanigans.

we have a whole bunch of these.  they come off of medication vials at work.  we use them for school to make patterns for math. my friend at work, Melissa, is much more creative and made these...

i like them a lot.

and last but not least...

yep.  Baby Pierce #3 shall arrive in September.  we are very excited.  to answer the most frequently asked question; was this planned?  well yes and no.  we prayed for Miley for 2 years before we finally got pregnant.  so while we were not preventing it, we were certainly surprised it happened after only putting a stop to nursing (our birth control) for 4 months.  a very happy surprise.

oh and one more thing.  if i have an altered mental status tomorrow,  someone should know why.  when i went to rock Miley to put her to bed, the room was dark and i thought i was sitting down in the rocking chair but i really sat beside the rocking chair.  the rocking air.  i cushioned Mileys fall but i think my head may have left a dent in the wall.  its pounding! and there is no non-liquid tylenol in this house. 

Carolyn

around 6pm at work on Monday I received a call from my friend Laura Stanfield.  the nurse in her seeped through and she started talking really slow.  preparing me like a child.  Carolyn...yeah...was out running today...yeah...and i don't know all of the details yet but...ok...i know she had a 15 minute down time and they did CPR...oh God...she had a massive MI in her LAD...ok...she is at Cone...on ice and on a vent...oh God...you got it? LAD, iced, vent, 2900 at Cone...i got it, ill call you as soon as i get off.

i left Alamance and headed to Cone.

  i realize if you are not a medical person a lot of this makes no sense, but to an ER nurse the words 15 minute downtime and CPR do not sound good and do not usually result in a positive outcome.  there is a process where after/during a MI (heart attack) we put ice on the patient to preserve cellular function, and a ventilator means a machine is breathing for them. 

  there she was, alive. Jay was there talking to the nurses. Leslie, Brandy and Lois were there. we checked her toenail polish, made sure she shaved her legs and decided she needed lip gloss but would have to settle for chapstick because that's all we had. we also made sure her teeth were intact because sometimes teeth can get broke in the process of intubation. trust me Carolyn would expect this of us.

i would skip all of the gory details if i didn't think they were necessary to see God at work.  Carolyn is a runner, though had not been running for several months.  she went out for a run and a nurse riding by saw her collapse and started CPR.  EMS arrived and took her to Cone, her initial rhythm was ventricular fibrillation and they shocked her once into sinus and saw the MI.  they bypassed the ER and went straight to the cath lab where they saw her LAD was blocked, they placed a stent, put her on ice and a vent.

meanwhile Jay (her husband) was at home wondering why she had not returned from her run and began calling 911 and the hospitals.  he soon found out there was a Jane Doe that matched his description.  another one of those ER nurses worst nightmares.  being a Jane Doe.  no one knows who you are, you are nameless, storyless. 

some will brush this off as just another medical phenomenon.  she was a ticking time bomb.  if she had not went out to run that day,chances are this could have happened in the near future in her sleep or at home alone.  if a nurse had not been riding by, CPR would have been delayed or never started.  EMS shows up and does their job with excellence. cardiologist ready to open up the blocked vessels. 

this is Carolyns job.  this is what we do.  we are the team that's waiting for you when you have an emergency.  its procedure.  we know what to do.  we focus.  we follow the steps and save lives.  but when you are not the nurse, when you are the patient or the patients family and friends its no longer protocol, its not procedure; its personal and it shakes you.  you cant focus.  you feel too much pain. 

God doesn't make mistakes. if He was ready for her to go He would have allowed it.  but He has plans for her.  i cant help but envision Him saying..."ok people this is your chance, make me known.  i hear your prayers.  make me famous. not for My good, but theirs."

i cant brush this off as phenomenon.  too many things fell into place, the odds were not good. yet she is thriving today.  i wish i were a numbers kinda person and could do the statistics and calculate the probability of all of this falling in to place and give you a number but im not that smart. though im sure you would reasonably be able to say it was not luck, it was God.

***** i included the wikipedia explanation to help you see why it was important to mention the MI involved her LAD****

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A widow maker is a nickname used to describe a highly stenotic left main coronary artery or proximal left anterior descending coronary artery of the heart.
This term is used because if the artery gets abruptly and completely occluded it will cause a massive heart attack that will likely lead to a sudden death. The blockage that kills is made up of platelets streaming to the site of a ruptured cholesterol plaque. Even a small amount of plaque in this area can (for a variety of poorly understood reasons) rupture and cause death; bypassing chronic blockages or trying to open them up with angioplasty does not prevent heart attack but it can restore blood flow in case of a sudden blockage or heart attack. An example of the devastating results of a complete occlusion of the LAD (Left Anterior Descending) artery was the sudden death of former NBC News Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert.
From the minute a widow maker hits, there is a five-minute window of time to get to a hospital or receive emergency care<sup>[1




So...may all praise and glory be to God.  the creator of the universe, Carolyn's creator.  your creator!</sup>

my random thoughts of the week

1- sweet Miley Belle.  i love her so much.  from what i understand when i am at work she runs around and plays like a normal kid.  what i know is that when i am at home the only time she runs around and plays like a normal kid is if i sit in the floor with her.  if i get up and go 3 steps to the kitchen to get a drink, she gets up running and crying and grabs my legs.  if she is not in the mood to play she wants me to hold her all day long.  standing.  not sitting lest she starts to scream.  i cant tell you how many times i have heard people say "just let her scream".  newsflash! how do you think i get anything done such as showering, cooking, cleaning.  i get it done WHILE listening to her scream.  unfortunately there is a limit to how much a mother can listen to her child scream without wanting to bang her head on a wall.  now for those who think im insane because you have seen us out and Miley seems pretty normal to you.  well you are right, in public or when there is a house full of people, she seems entertained and content.  but she is a completely different creature at home on a daily basis with me.  i would do it all over again b/c i love her so, but it doesn't change the fact that it is challenging and draining. 

i don't like to "label" children because those labels sometimes stick and eventually they change.  but when all else fails i turn to Dr. Sears who best described Miley as "a demanding baby" (and toddler).  at least it helped me feel a little more normal and put a new, more positive spin on my exhaustion...

****               "DEMANDING"
High need babies don't just merely request feeding and holding, they demand it -- loudly. This feature more than any of the others pushes parents' buttons, causing them to feel manipulated and controlled. Adults who are stuck in the "parenting equals control" mindset may have great difficulty realizing that babies' demands equal communication, not control.
Mothers of high need babies often say, "I just can't get to him fast enough." These babies convey a sense of urgency in their signals; they do not like waiting, and they do not readily accept alternatives. Woe to the parent who offers baby the rattle when he is expecting a breast. He will let you know quickly and loudly that you've misread his cues. The concept of "delayed gratification" is totally foreign to infants, it must be sensitively and gradually taught when the child is developmentally ready to learn it.
It may be easier to cope with your baby's demanding signals if you understand why high need babies have to be demanding in order to thrive. Suppose baby had high needs but did not have a strong personality to "demand" that these needs get met. Suppose he did not use the kind of persistent cry that ensures a response. This would be a lose-lose situation: baby would not thrive because his needs would not be filled, and parents would not get enough practice at cue reading to ever pick up on the baby's real need level.
If the child feels that she can trust her caregivers, she will eventually learn to make her demands in a more socially acceptable way, rather than wildly overwhelming the whole caregiving environment. With parents who both respond to and wisely channel her demands, the high need child develops into a person with determination, one who will fight for her rights. The child becomes a leader instead of a follower, one who does not just follow the path of least resistance and do what everyone else is doing. Certainly, our country needs more of such citizens.
Being demanding is the trait of high need children that is most likely to drive parents bananas, but it is also the trait that drives children to succeed and excel. A high need child with a corresponding demanding personality will, if nurtured and channeled appropriately during the formative years, exhaust teachers as she did her parents; yet she will also be able to extract from adult resources, such as teachers, the level of help and education she will need to thrive in academic and social endeavors. This is why it is so important not to squelch an infant's expressiveness. The ability to know one's needs and be able to comfortably express them is a valuable tool for success in life.
As the high need infant grows into a high need toddler and child, parents must also help her learn that her demands must be balanced against the needs of others, so that she can learn to be a likeable and compassionate person as well as a demanding one. Helping a demanding infant develop a persistent personality without becoming a controlling person is one of the challenges we will discuss throughout this book.*****(Dr.Sears)

so here is to hoping that Miley becomes a confident, thriving leader with an exceptional ability to excel.  thank you Lord for Miley and for all that You are teaching me.

2- on a lighter note.  today while sitting stationary in the floor, folding tons of tiny laundry, Miley was playing.  at some point when she came to check on me and make sure i was making no attempt to escape, i noticed she had sumo legs.  upon further investigation i found this...

all of these.

she is cute.

she loves those squishy squashies.

3-  Lucas and I decided today that Presley shall not receive any new toys, which includes the dollar rack at Target, until February 1st.  then we will reassess her ability to respect the toys she has.  i was very annoyed when she destroyed the first Christmas gift by stabbing it with a pencil multiple times (it was inflatable) and extremely annoyed when i found out another toy had been cut up with scissors.  both toys costing around 50 dollars a piece.  not cool. not cool at all.

4- my girls have many more good qualities than bad i assure you. their daddy and their grandparents will tell you they are perfect, and that's OK. im just a little more realistic.  wonderful yes, perfect no.

5- took my dad to get a myleogram at the crack of dawn this week.  i enjoy it. quality time with dad.  i recently received a warning from a state trooper and put it in the passenger side sun visor.  after the procedure they wanted dad to lie flat or at most a 40 degree angle.  so on the way home with his seat laid back, he says "casey wynne, is that a ticket i see?" CRAP  go figure, 30 years old and still get caught by your father.

6- while waiting in the waiting room the volunteer staff came around with a basket of goodies and asked if i wanted one.  a church had put a sticker on the Little Debbie treats with a verse on them.  i thought that was neat.

7- if you are running out of things to pray about i give you permission to pray for Mileys independence, Presleys desire to respect her toys, dads recovering back injury and my sanity.

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