The Gift of Life

In more than one way lately, I've been exposed to the realities of this crazy thing called life. Work has been full of sick, sick people waiting for organs. What's new? And people who have received their "gift of life," now losing it, shamefully, on their own accord, usually from the same cause that put them into organ failure in the first place. There are always the sad sacks who can't afford their meds or don't have family support to get to their appointments because they live too far away or the ones who can't read so they ingest toxic levels of their medications. Funny thing is that all those things are reviewed upon getting listed, aren't they? so that another organ in this short supply doesn't go to waste?! Whatever.
On a much lighter note, my girls are great. The true "gift of life." My oldest starts Kindergarten in a few weeks. She doesn't get it yet, she thinks it is just letters and numbers. "I don't want to learn letters, Mom!" with the raise in her voice at the end. I told her, "You already know them, silly...." And she replies, "Oh. So what do we do there again?" I told her about some of my friends I've known since Kindergarten. You know who you are. I told her I don't remember a thing about being 4, but all my memories begin when I turned 5 and went to school. "I have some of the world's greatest friends", I told her, "and many of them I've known since I was 5." Reality check: "but you were 5 a long time ago..." I'm excited for her. She's going to love school.
The baby is over a bout of rotovirus, or so we suspect. Everything that went in her came out, quickly, and in mostly the same consistency. Poor thing. So she got shots again, and if you've been reading, you know how I feel about those. It's a dirty, nasty, necessary trick. (Work in a transplant unit and you'll see people that get those weird diseases. And if I brought something home on my icky blue scrubs, I'd be darn glad she got stuck in the legs.) She's otherwise right on track. Sitting up quite well, eating a bunch of food, rolling over. She gets on her knees and sticks her butt up in the air when she's on her belly, like she's going to take off one of these days. She gets better all the time, just like her sister. They are quite a pair, those two. Love 'em.

Boo hoo!

I had to take Audrey in for shots today. Four of them, two in each leg. Let me tell you how this goes, if you don't know. It's the worst. You spend all this time trying to get your babies to trust you and love you, trying to get them to be still at the calming sound of your voice. Riiiiight. Any confidence Audrey had in me is shot....pun intended. She has now cashed it in, on my lap at home, feeling dejected, her baby blues opening every once in awhile, and a pathetic little screech that says, "My legs!"
There's nothing better than being a mom to daughters. I feel like, in a way, Audrey is more mine than Olivia started out being. I wasn't married, I lived in a house 50 feet from my mom's front door. We had lots of help, for which I was and am grateful. Olivia is a better person for it. She knows her extended family very well and they have literally watched her grow up. Audrey is a different story. Everything about her is me! (That will be very telling when she is 5 years old.) I can only hope that her little young life has many, many opportunities to get to know her auntie(s) and uncles and grandparents because I think that is what has made my Olive so great.
In the meantime, I'm going to get my Aud a bottle and make her like me again. Hopefully I'll regain her trust, just in time to lose it at her 4-month apopintment. :(

In like a lion...

I'm sitting at home today (again) while it starts to snow (again) watching the news (again). This big-ass blizzard is going to keep me home tomorrow from visiting Heather & Dylan, to Pierre, and to Rapid City. Oh well, I guess. Can't argue with a closed interstate. The pisser is that it isn't even snowing or blowing here barely. Whatever. Spring is coming, spring is coming, spring is coming....
I suppose I'll start to pack, give this baby girl a bath, do the dishes. I stopped by at work yesterday and saw what I've been missing. Some of the long-termers have gone home to start living or to continue dying. I miss using my brain, the intellectual nature of it, the new friends, the support of a bunch of 20-30-year-old smart women who understand about having babies and stuff. It's great.
I'm ready for a Spring Break.