Saturday, July 17, 2010

Happy Birthday Rebekah

Today is Rebekah's 8th birthday and I thought I would take a trip down memory lane to the year she was born.

Rebekah is my only summer baby.... and boy am I glad I didn't do that again! I was miserable to say the least. We didn't have A/C in our house at the time and knew I didn't want to be so hot all summer, so we got a window unit. It worked well, but I found that we all slept better in the living room in front of the unit.

Well, the doctor decided that I looked uncomfortable and suggested induction. I had had Rachel on her own time and she was a few days late. I jumped at the idea and the date was set. We arrived at the hospital and got all set up. We didn't know it until hours later, but our anesthesiologist was going to make a mistake that would keep me in the hospital for days. But I am jumping ahead of myself. Labor went very smoothly and I enjoyed not feeling any pain.... in fact I couldn't feel anything really below my waist. You would think that would be a good thing... didn't help when it came to pushing though as my legs were so medicated I couldn't move them at all. With my sister and hubby's help (and of course the doctors and nurses) I pushed and she arrived. She was smaller than Rachel. 8lb 6oz. 20 in. long
Then mistake that the anesthesiologist had made would catch up to me many hours later. She had placed the needle in too far and I ended up with a spinal headache that lasted for many days and kept me in the hospital for 5 days instead of 3. I did finally go home and my body did heal. 
Now today we get to celebrate my little headache....just kidding...my little blessing, Rebekah! Happy Birthday Rebekah!!

Here are some pictures of Rebekah through the years.......





 


Monday, February 22, 2010

Too Cute!!

Maggie had a cough and I asked her a question. The tale that unfolded was cute and I thought I had to share. :)

Me: My that was a big cough. Where did that come from?

Maggie: From Africa.

Me: From Africa? Why was it in Africa?

Maggie: It was bad.

Me: Why was it bad?

Maggie: It said a bad word.

Me: It said a bad word? What did it say?

Maggie: It said shut-up.

Me: Oh we don't say words like that do we.

Maggie: No.

Mikayla: You don't talk like that.

Maggie: It was my cough that said it.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

TerraCycle by Rachel


Last night Rachel put out her display at her school and told others about TerraCycle. This coming Tuesday her article on TerraCycle will be posted in the edition of the Acorn, her school newspaper. I wanted to share Rachel's article with everyone.

Enjoy!!!


A New Way to Recycle: TerraCycle
By: Rachel Lindahl

Most people know about recycling. You can collect plastic, paper, tin and aluminum to take it to a recycling company to be reused. TerraCycle is different from regular recycling. With TerraCycle, you can collect a variety of items and send them to Trenton, New Jersey, where TerraCycle will turn the trash you collected into a brand new product.
The items you can collect are drink pouches, yogurt containers, candy wrappers, cookie wrappers, chip bags, pens, Sharpies, Elmer’s glue bottles and sticks, Lunch-able lunch kits, and many more. TerraCycle’s program uses their recycling program to benefit schools and other not-for-profit organizations. Their motto is Collect Trash, Earn Cash, Save the Planet. All a school or group needs to do is sign-up and start collecting trash. Each item you collect is gives your school or group two cents to use anyway that the school or group wishes.
There are two ways to send the products into TerraCycle. The first is to request a shipping label to be sent to you. Second is to print your own label to put on a box to send in. When you have enough to fill a box, seal the box and attach the label. Then you take it to UPS to ship for FREE!! The school that my mom works at, Pleasant Valley, has earned $40.90 from recycling just juice pouches. That is 2,045 juice pouches that are not in a landfill.
The reason I wanted to write about this is because I would like our school to sign-up. If Charter Oak began to use TerraCycle, then the school could provide more field trips for all classrooms using the money earned.



For more information on TerraCycle: www.terracycle.net

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Mikayla, my "Kaybug"


Well, actually that is a name her father calls her. She is my 4, almost 5, year old daughter. She had surgery on Monday to repair the hole in her ear. It wasn't a difficult procedure, but did take about an hour.

We arrived at the hospital around 7 am. It was at OSF St. Francis Outpatient surgery. Dr. Gootee was going to take a piece of tissue from her ear lobe and place it over the hole, fill her ear with ointment and let it grow together. Mikayla brought her stuffed puppy along with us. After arriving and parking our van, we took a ride on the cart to the hospital entrance. We registered (funny point: The lady who called out name said Linedhall... never heard that one before.) and then were told to head to the 3rd floor. Up to the surgery floor we went. We were shown to a room that had 4 different "rooms", only walls were curtains. Mikayla saw the toys and took her puppy to one of the cars and started to play. The nurse gave me a hospital outfit to put on her and I told Mikayla that we had to play dress-up. She got changed and returned to playing. When the nurse came in, she had a basket of hats for Mikayla to pick through. They were home made by a group of ladies to help kids feel special when they have to come for surgery... TOO SWEET!!
Mikayla picked a cow one first (no surprise, cows are one of her favorite animals), but then quickly changed when she saw a Strawberry shortcake one. She looked too cute. Then the waiting began. Her surgery was the second one Dr. Gootee was going to perform. After waiting about an hour and a half, the nurse came in and said it was time. Mikayla climbed into one of the riding cars, put her puppy in the small compartment, waved bye to me and off they went. I went down to the waiting area where they give you a pager and a number. The number tells you where the patient is on the screen and then is color coded to what they are doing with them. I watched the screen for a while, but found it to be quite tiring as you wait to see if there are any changes in status. After about an hour, I see that the status did change and her surgery is over. Dr. Gootee called down on the hospital phone to say all had gone as expected and I would get to see her in recovery.





Then the hard part. Seeing your child hooked up to monitors, IV in her hand, A drop of drying blood on the blanket, slowly waking from the medicine.... WOW! Talk about pulling at the heart strings of a mom!! She was in stage 1 recovery for about 15 minutes. The nurse pulled over a chair so I could rock her. She soon woke up and said "Momma". I picked her up and sat in the rocking chair. She cried that the IV hurt her hand. I tried to be reassuring, but all I could do was cry. We were then moved to stage 2 recovery where I rocked her some more. Mikayla continued to complain about the IV in her hand and how much it hurt. The nurse came in and asked if she would like some juice. I said yes. She really didn't want to drink any, but I told her that she would need to drink some in order to get the IV out. She took a few sips and then was done. Mikayla still wanted the IV removed...but the nurses wanted to wait and make sure she could keep the juice down. She cried and cried. The only thing I could think to do was sing. So I asked Mikayla if she wanted me to sing her a song. She nodded yes. I asked her if she wanted me to sing Jesus Loves Me. Again she nodded. So I began to sing. Tears welled up in my eyes and I choked on my cries as I sang. I sand that song about 20 times and before I knew it, she was fast asleep again. The nurse came in after a bit and saw she was sleeping. She said she would return in a bit to remove her IV when Mikayla woke up. She slept for about 10 minutes and the was awake again. The nurse removed her IV, blood presure cuff, and got her ready to go. One of the hospital volunteers brought in a wheelchair and took us out to the parking deck.