Final Reflections

Since I already started this theme, call it "reflections of a mother" or "children sketches," I need to finish up with Abigail so I leave no one out.

When she was a baby, she had features that seemed too big for her face--her huge eyes and wide mouth. I would get comments all the time from strangers, and I remember one such in Walmart when a lady stopped and looked at Abigail and said something like, "look at those eyes--that's no fair!" Well, I am happy to see that she has grown into these said features and is not to far from turning the corner into young womanhood. It is a scary prospect for me because it is unknown territory. Unfortunate for Abigail, everything about raising her has been unknown territory being our first child and considering how young and inexperienced we were when we had her. Despite all our inadequacies and deficiencies, she is turning out to be an amazing girl and we couldn't ask for a better eldest child.

Abigail is also getting quite accomplished at the piano. I currently teach her and I think I can only finish 4th grade (through level 5 of her piano course) and then I need to final another arrangement. Again, I've never taught piano and she has been somewhat of an experiment for me. It has all turned out better than expected and I am very pleased with her effort and progress. And even more important, she loves to be at the piano and I think finds great satisfaction and confidence in what she has accomplished. She has learned at an early age that effort and practice pay big returns. I try to tell her it is the same with soccer. She likes soccer and wants to be good at it as well. Right now she practices once a week with games on Saturday--still very much a recreational sport for her and we are happy to see her branch out of her comfort zone and get some good exercise too.

Abigail loves anything creative from writing to drawing and even, as you see pictured, origami. She works hard at everything she does in school and at home. She has a pretty hard core, brilliant teacher who is preparing her for about 8th grade I think. She has 1+ hours of homework every night, researching on the Internet, doing power points, share points, math, handwriting, word studies, book group prep, and on and on. I think it has been more of an adjustment for me as I have to help her manage it all and I seem to complain more than she does. If nothing else, he is making sure these 4th graders are well prepared for the years ahead. Joseph thinks it is fantastic.

Abigail doesn't have a mean bone in her body and is careful to include everyone, even a little brother who can be annoying on occasion. She is also rather shy and reserved--at least with people or in situations she doesn't feel comfortable. That used to be most situations outside the home but is now less. Lately, she has really taken to reading and is currently reading Chronicles of Narnia. She loves fantasy and adventure books, the Series of Unfortunate Events being another one of her favorites. She has never been interested in a lot of the things girls her age like, i.e., HS Musical, Hannah Montana, pop music, and things of that sort. You will rarely find her in front of the TV--never has been and it will be interesting to see if she ever cares about TV.

We recently took the kids to the Botanic Gardens here in Singapore to try and get some good photos of them. Not everyone would cooperate, starting from the beginning when I tried to dress them all in their matching "tropical" clothes I bought at Gymboree last summer in the states. We were in such a rush to get to church anyway with hair done and shoes on. In any case, here are some of the results of the group pictures.

Magdalene

As intriguing as her name. Her name is unusual and does get noticed by school officials, doctors, etc. Quietly defiant, internal and what some people might call and introvert (however I don't like that label) we always have interesting conversations with her teachers at school. She seems to come into conflict with authority in some way or another. I remember suppressing laughter when I took her to a hearing screening years ago when she was 4. She wouldn't agree with the nurse about what to label the sound that she heard and consequently only partially finished the screening with a very frustrated lady. I wanted to laugh because I realized for the first time it wasn't just me she challenged constantly. This year in 2nd grade, her teacher told us she has learned with Maggie she has to pick her battles which include anything from neatness, organization or following directions.

She is also very bright. They have an "open response" optional section after every math unit assessment and she nails them every time (when sometimes only 3 others get it right.) She also sees things differently. On a math worksheet, she had to write a word problem using a picture of lions. There were various lions--male, female, large and small as the focus of the sketch. She chose to use the small trees in the distance to use for her word problem. I didn't even notice them until I looked over her work. I thought it was so interesting that she looked past the obvious but still did something valid. This is a classic photo I pulled up--one of Joseph's favorites taken when Maggie was 3. We lived in Belgium at the time and went up to the Netherlands to see the tulip fields. There were rows of tulips as far as the eye could see in every variety. It was spectacular. We went down to get a closer look and let the girls run through the tulips. On the way down, Maggie found this yellow dandelion growing by itself and she was absolutely taken with it. She carried it around with her almost oblivious to the millions of tulips surrounding her, content with that little obscure dandelion.

She snorts when she laughs, and has an easily recognizable laugh that starts low and grows louder and louder until it fills a room. When she was a baby, she didn't cry so much as she growled. She also has great expressions. Whether she is pouting, angry, annoyed, excited, bored or whatever, it is all clearly written on her face. But when it comes to things that are deeper or of greater consequence, like friendship issues, warnings from a teacher, or things of that nature, then getting her to reveal anything is like trying to crack a secret code. She is a great sister and has a special relationship with Ella. She is sweet and generous, the quickest to share in our family and the least concerned with who gets the most or the biggest.

An Even Bigger Loveable Guy

He used to shower me with kisses (see previous blog) but travels the world now and showers me with gifts. Joseph recently went to India on a b-trip and brought me back this collection of purses. Now I just need some evening gowns and events to attend. He told that will all come in time---he just was so excited about these beaded evening bags and wanted me to have some on hand for when. (The picture doesn't really do justice to the intricate beaded work of the evening bags.) After 11+ years of marriage, I've learned that Joseph doesn't do things on a small scale, and he doesn't get bogged down with decisions or second guessing anything. Obviously the purses illustrate this, but it extends far beyond into everything he does with his career, personal goals like training, and family.


Joseph recently was put in charge of coal on the steel platform. That means buying and selling the coal--trading. It has been really crazy this past month as he still is doing a strategy for steel in India along with learning the ropes in trading coal. I've learned that trading goes on at all hours because it is a global thing so it isn't unusual for Joseph to on the phone at odd times. He is excited about it though and says that if he can trade successfully he can do just about anything in Cargill. It definitely is higher risk and more stress though. Most of his travel will be in India and China now as that is where the coal customers are.

Loveable Guy

Xander recently had a concert at school. It was questionable whether or not he would participate, but we went anyway and thought he could at least watch his classmates perform and learn something from that. He ended up participating some--not staying with the class but sitting with us and running up on stage when it was his number. The picture you see here is during the Chinese performance. He did one in English as well. Let me clarify something--he does not know Chinese. According to his teacher, he is not keen to participate in any Chinese instruction and mostly "zones" when it is Chinese circle time. Oh well. At least he knows there is a language called Chinese and he hears it at school--that is something. I'm not sure what the performance was about and the costume thing (because I didn't understand it) but it was pretty cute.

So many people make some kind of comment when they hear we are having another girl that Xander won't have a brother. I always quickly add, "but he has a cool dad." I try to emphasize the fact that he has another pal and will always be able to wrestle, get sweaty, build things, play trucks, etc., with his dad. I think they have a lot in common--neither of them are exactly the conservative type, preferring to, as Joseph once wrote about himself (quoting Thoreau), "suck the marrow out of life." Xander constantly tells me he doesn't like the night time. He likes the day because he wants to do things. He wakes up energetic and optimistic, ready to embrace the day, find an adventure and enjoy life. He also has a lot of determination, strength, and stamina--all the makings of a good missionary someday just like his dad also.

Xander is also the most affectionate guy. He loves to shower me with hugs and kisses. I shut his bedroom door every night after I tuck him in to a barrage of kisses he blows at me. And the other day when I was driving him home from school, he said seriously, "Mom, you are so good. You are just so good." I was surprised at his sincerity and I said, "Why am I so good buddy?" And he thought for a minute, "Um, you are just so nice and pretty." I told Joseph that night that I got some really good feedback at work that day.

One more thing, just the other day, Xander and I were going to check on some jello in the kitchen. He was running pretty fast and tripped on the stair down into our tiled kitchen. He must have hit his chin just right, but it was weird because it wasn't bleeding much. Anyway, it took me a few minutes to decipher through his sobbing words that his chin hurt and upon closer examination, I saw that it was split open pretty bad. The first case of stitches in our family to date. As I sat in the hospital for the second time that day (I had been there earlier for my OB appointment) I counted 17 times there in the last month. Amazing. When the OB office asked if I wanted a tour of the hospital on my next check-up, I answered probably not and that I had a pretty good idea of how to get around.

Little Cutie

I really should be going to bed, but I am just so happy to have a computer back that I wanted to do something. Our hard drive crashed a week ago and it has been quite the experience living without a computer for a week--try it and see for yourself how much you get the itch to go sit down at the computer and check email, the news, look up a recipe, blogs, whatever. We never got the hard drive back and everything on it is gone forever (unless we want to pay $1000 at some "clean" extraction lab.) Luckily most of the important stuff was backed up--not all though. I think we lost some itunes purchases and documents like talks, and who knows what else (hopefully some viruses.) Apparently, it is stuff we can live without as I found out during the week. Oh well. I wanted to just post some pictures, it has been such a long time. I will add a bunch (in phases) now that life is settling down somewhat back to the usual.

Ella went though a hat stage for awhile and loved putting things on her head. So here are some cute pictures of her with "hats." She has such a fun personality that is fun to discover as she is older. She is also talking surprisingly well now and the older girls love to interact with her. She used to call both of them Maggie because it was easier to say, but we worked on Abigail and she can say some version of that too. She has to have a binkie for bed and one day she decided she will only take a green binkie--no more orange, pink or yellow. We have only 2 greens and while Joseph says that can't last long, she is pretty stubborn and when it is time for a nap I don't want to argue with her. Kids are such a riot starting at about 2

A few more things about Ella: She is a climber. If she wants something, she will get it. The other day I found her downstairs eating a banana. She had climbed on the table, took one bite out of every apple in the fruit bowl, then tore a banana off the bunch, and peeled it herself. She is a thrill seeker. The steeper and faster the slide the better, and the more dangerous or advanced the apparatus at the park the better. And she is a tough cookie. She can tumble, fall, get kicked, bleed, spray herself in the face with bathroom freshener and still not cry. She will only say, "It hurts."

Joseph bought her this dress in India on a b-trip in September and it is a size 6. I think she already out grew it. She is a very tall girl (and the clothes there are really small.) She kept tugging on it at church like she wanted it off because it was cutting under her arms.

The Conclusion

After fifteen days in and out of the hospital and operating theaters, Joseph finally came home last weekend. When he said to the doctor at his follow-up appointment, "A hundred years ago I would have been dead," the doctor responded that actually people today die from the severity of appendicitis that he had. His appendix most likely burst on a Saturday and his abdomen was filled with infection. The doctor said it was an acute rupture of the appendix and the infection had almost certainly gone into his blood stream by Sunday afternoon when he went to the ER. If he wasn't healthy and strong, he could very well have gone into shock from the poison filling his body.

The first surgery on that Sunday afternoon went well and his appendix was removed followed by 2 liters of antibiotic rinse to clean his intestines. However, he remained weak and sick and recovery wasn't going well. In 5-10% of appendix cases, the small intestines can become blocked due to the "stickiness" of the procedure. The more severe the case, the more likely this can happen. During the first week, Joseph continued to vomit excessively and it became apparent that something else was wrong. More CAT scans revealed that he had intestinal adhesions--or his small bowels had stuck together causing an obstruction, blocking the path in the small intestine and causing the intestines to swell considerably. He looked terrible, hadn't eaten in anything in a week and was really kept going by IV fluids. He was vomiting stomach acids profusely and finally they put a tube down his throat to relieve him of that. His next surgery was a week later had was performed right after this new problem was discovered. The doctor was able to go into his abdomen through the same 3 cuts from the appendix, adding a fourth.


Recovery was slow but going in the right direction this time. He was unable to eat anything for days, keeping the IVs in with liquid and food now along with the tube draining his stomach acids. Then, starting with the basics, he slowly and painfully added things to his diet--rice cereal, applesauce, jello, soup. After another week of what seemed like baby steps (literally and figuratively), he was able to get off the sustaining IVs and pain killers and come home.

Some lessons learned from this experience:

1. Even during tough times, it is very clear that the Lord is aware of you and watching over everything and this is evidenced by small miracles. We call these tender mercies. We are grateful Joseph wasn't in China when all this happened. He started feeling uncomfortable on the flight home, and within an hour of landing he was really sick. We are also grateful that it didn't occur in the middle of our move the previous week, or later on in my pregnancy. Timing was a mercy here.

Joseph was able to come home for less than 24 hours between episodes (maybe he shouldn't have) but he garnered enough strength to come home and added to it by being with his family, sitting at the table with his children, gathering his family for prayers, telling his son a story--simple things that helped immensely with the setback of having to go back and suffer some more. Another tender mercy.

And as I walked the halls of the hospital day after day up to his room, I was constantly reminded it could be worse. It could always be worse.

2. Unexpected--a word that gained new meaning during this ordeal. Gifts can be unexpected, international moves, pregnancies. And sickness gave it a new dimension. I was also reminded that health is fragile and should not be taken for granted. We can't exactly say why this happened, but we both felt strongly that there was and is a purpose for it. We had to learn lessons that couldn't be learned any other way. Part of experience in this mortal life includes suffering and pain. It is unpleasant but necessary and even valuable. I think someday when we look back at our life--the joy, the surprises, the disappointments, pain and suffering--we will say it was worth it. Having a body and this mortal experience was worth all of it.

3. There are good things in life and important things in life and when something like this happens, you just drop what's not essential and focus on what is. The first week I tried to do everything I normally did, keeping on top of the busy schedule I have with 4 children and a pregnancy to manage. And then I was exhausted, depleted of energy and momentum and feeling a little bit of despair. So the second week I didn't plan anything ahead. I just woke up that day and asked myself, what are the important things I need to do today? Preschool was put on hold, piano, play groups, even some church activities. It is amazing how many good activities can go if needed and how you see yourself rise in strength and capability when occasion requires. I was able to spend time with Joseph each day, keep the family stable, and myself healthy and strong. That's what was essential.

4. At first I thought the bowel obstruction was kind of a side thing, a complication that would be easily fixed and that was it. Little did I realize how delicate the bowels can be and how important they are to our daily life. I thought a lot about bowels during this time and began to reflect on their symbolism and how they are used in the gospel and the scriptures. We all know about the heart--its literal importance and figurative meaning. The heart is the life blood, the powerful pulse of our existence and the symbol of our love, our feelings and emotion. The bowels are the at the very center of our bodies, giving us our nutrition; and they are also to be full of charity and compassion, both spiritual forms of nutrition we offer to others. The bowels also sustain life and we are taught that Christ's bowels are full of mercy which sustains us in this life and ultimately extends to us eternal life.

5. And finally we about got our moneys worth of insurance after paying 10+ years of premiums. The total bill here was steep and would have been triple that if we were in the states. Health care is significantly cheaper here and still excellent. Joseph said he's rather just pay the premiums and never cash in. In any case, we easily met our out-of-pocket maximum, a goal we never aspired to reach, nonetheless another thing we are grateful for.