Things Moms Say During the Month of December

Even though Christmas is my favorite time of the year, sooner or later the stress gets to me: the baking, the gift-buying (and wrapping,) and the tall stack of Christmas cards to address and send — all on top of all the regular work of life that I already can't keep up with!

So as I gear up for another Christmas, here's a list of things that I will almost definitely say between now and December 25th:

"Do you have anything you want me to put in the Christmas letter about you? No, I'm not saying that. That, either."

"Look at this line. I can't believe we're doing this again this year."

"My eardrums are going to start bleeding if I hear Burl Ives sing 'Kisserrrrrrr once for me!' again."

"I know he's going to cry. But it's my inalienable right as a parent to get a picture of him on Santa's lap and he'll survive."

"Hi honey, can you buy like 12 boxes of butter on your way home from work? Thanks!"

"I love Amazon Prime."

"Who wants to help Mommy stuff Christmas card envelopes? Anybody?"

"Are we still having this conversation every morning? I said no shorts!"

"If you say in front of your little sister that there's no Santa one more time, you will get no presents this year!"

"I'm going to vomit if I see one more Christmas cookie."

"$23.49 for overnight shipping? The thing only costs $10!"

"Oh, you've had all your shopping done since Thanksgiving? Well, I just took down the Easter Egg wreath on our front door, so I guess we're both doing pretty well."

"How can we not have any tape? I just bought 5 rolls!"

"Are we just buying crap for the sake of buying crap?"

"No ornaments on the bottom half of the tree, you know the baby will eat them."

"I'm pretty sure this is a fire hazard, you guys."

"Sorry, no changing your mind about what you want from Santa now. Uh... because his elves are already working on it."

"Really? You just watched another movie in school? You haven't learned anything in at least a week."

"There's no way we're doing Elf on the Shelf. Our Tooth Fairy can't even get it together, and that's only once every couple of months."

"Whoever took baby Jesus out of the Nativity set, you've got 10 minutes to put him back."

"That's fine if you don't want to look at Christmas lights. You can close your eyes. Now get in the car!"

"I'm making cookie plates for the neighbors and I need your opinion: How many cookies say, 'I'm sorry you can hear our kids screaming from inside your house?'"

"No more fingers in the cookie dough, you guys, I mean it! These are for the neighbors!"

"Santa does not bring live pets for Christmas. I don't care what he said at the mall."

"I don't know why Clara's shoe kills the mouse king. It just does. No, I don't think it's radioactive. It's just a shoe."

"Who was peeking in here? The corner of this present was clearly unwrapped by one of you."

"Ugh... let's try this again. Buddy, I know you're bored. But if you ever want to leave you need to look at the camera and stop making faces!"

"I just took this garland out of the box. How has it shed all over the house already?"

"Put those ornaments back, they'll get broken. See? What did I tell you?"

"No matter what I do, this tree looks lopsided."

"Every time I turn around there are more of them than before! How many presents are left to wrap? I'm so tired my eyeballs feel like they're turning inside-out, and we haven't even filled their stockings yet..."

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7 Quick Takes about Defining Irrelevance, Repurposing Happy Meal Toys, and Spending Thanksgiving with the Whipped Cream Bandit

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

In school, my middle schooler was assigned a word and was supposed to design a billboard to illustrate it. Her word was "irrelevant."

She did this in English class, which they actually call 'ELA' (for English Language Arts, I think.) They call everything something super-complicated now: instead of 'art' and 'band' she goes to UA ('unified arts,' go figure) and instead of homeroom they have 'flex block.' I'm so glad I'm not in school now. Too complicated.

—2—

I got quite a scare at my OB's office when she couldn't find the baby's heartbeat this week. She moved the doppler around for literally 3 or 4 minutes before she was able to find it. She found it and everything looks fine, but watching her face get more and more serious was something I don't care to repeat!

—3—

Phillip, who's a scout leader for the 16- and 17-year old boy scouts, went on another one of their crazy campouts. This time they did an Iron Chef-type competition... using live chickens. I declined to watch video of the event, but I'm sure it was lovely.

They also practiced target shooting with rifles. As per scout rules, they had an NRA-certified instructor there and he was talking about his college-aged daughter's shooting team. Did you know that until the early 20s, women are actually better sharpshooters than men? Lots of colleges are creating all-women's teams instead of co-ed teams, not because they have to but because it gives them an advantage at competitions.

—4—

Inspired by the campout, Phillip came home and did some BB gun shooting with our kids.

Please note the construction of the table, which featured no nails (Phillip is an engineer.)

So if you need something to do with your old and unused Happy Meal toys... kids love this.

—5—

I don't know about you, but I'm getting really tired of fixing library books. Someone either leaves them on the couch or the floor where nothing good can happen to them, or the toddler gets into them and tears the pages.

Phillip: (seeing me taping the page of a book back together) Is that a library book?
Me: (sigh) Of course.
Phillip: Do other people have this problem?
Me: Yes! I've checked out books from the library before with scribbles and taped-together pages!
Phillip: But only because we've checked those ones out before, right?

Touché.

—6—

Congratulations to Rondah and Jenny for winning last week's Advent Giveaway!

If you missed it or didn't win, it's not too late. You can purchase one here through my affiliate link (it's a digital copy that you get by email, so if you roll last-minute that's still cool) and every day of December you and your kids will learn a new Biblical name of Jesus and color and beautiful ornament.

—7—

Thanksgiving dinner was, as it always is when Phillip is the head chef, unspeakably delicious. It was tasty to a degree that was almost obscene.

There are no words.

Preschooler kept asking, "Can I lick the bird?"
(The function of the bird is to make the crust crispier because the steam from inside during baking goes out the bird's beak.)

After dinner and dessert, we went to go hang out in the living room for a while before we cleared the table. Unbeknownst to us, the preschooler was quietly eating almost the entire big bowl of whipped cream that was left over...

You can see the legs of the guilty party running away in the background.

We're lucky that it worked out. My son didn't feel good for the last few days, and last night just before bed he actually threw up. All over the electronic dog his sister got for her birthday.

Everyone felt fine on Thanksgiving Day, though, although I can't say the same for the dog.

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Minecraft Ate My Children

I used to have three well-rounded, articulate elementary schoolers. They could formulate complete sentences with words and concepts that made sense.

Then they learned about Minecraft.

Now I rarely hear them talk about anything other than creepers and re-spawning and some guy named Steve. It sounds like they're speaking English, but then again maybe I'm wrong because I have a college degree in English and I still can't figure out what they're saying.

Every topic of conversation these days somehow leads to Minecraft. My children have entered another world, one where their favorite pastime is sitting around the computer heatedly debating the merits of building with acacia wood.

Is that what 7-year-olds do these days?

I've seen them literally jumping up and down in excitement over making mushroom stew — in the game, of course. (If only they'd retain that level of enthusiasm for mushroom anything in real life.)

Yesterday during my son's daily Minecraft fix, he unexpectedly struck emerald. Judging by the way the kids all began screaming in synchronized rapture, I gather that this is rare. But I wouldn't really know.

As their mother, I try to share in their excitement. Really, I do. I just can't keep my eyes from glazing over when they start explaining to me the number of hits it takes to defeat different types of monsters with a wood sword, and an iron sword, and a diamond sword, and a...

Wait, where was I?

When my kids talk Minecraft to me, I have to actively fight off a boredom-induced coma. I have to snap myself out of fantasies about doing something more intellectually stimulating, like folding laundry or poking myself in the eyes with barbecue skewers.

If they can't be playing Minecraft, at least they can draw it.

But like my parents before me, I'll nod and pretend to be interested in whatever weird things my kids are into because I love them. (Note to self: call parents and apologize for talking their ear off about New Kids on the Block and the Sims.)

When they call me in to gaze appreciatively on the computerized world they've created, I will. Even though I have no idea what I'm looking at, because Minecraft's pixelated graphics are worse than the ones I grew up with.

In the 80s, there was an Atari in my living room that was frankly easier on the eyes than Minecraft. Things were simpler back then. In fact, if someone showed up on my doorstep today with a working Atari console and a Frogger cartridge I would happily lock myself in my room with it all afternoon.

But even though it might look a lot like the Atari, Minecraft appears to be an entirely different (completely illogical) sort of entity.

Just when I think I'm finally starting to understand some of the basics, my kids drop another bomb on me: there's actually a whole other world called the Nether. The guy I thought was called “Hero Brian” is actually named “herobrine.” You can make a block of TNT float in the air, just because.

Forget it, I understand nothing. Life no longer makes sense.

On a related note, I just found out that you can play Frogger online. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my room.

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Your House Is Haunted... Or Maybe You Just Have Children

This Saturday morning as I lay in bed, listening to a faint "scratch scratch scratch" sound on my bedroom door that eventually went away, I started to wonder if my house could possibly be haunted.

The more I thought about this theory, the more it made sense. Paranormal activity would explain a lot of occurrences around my house, such as:

1. Unexplained footsteps in the middle of the night.

2. Finding lights on in rooms when I'm absolutely positive I turned them off.

3. Mysterious writing on the walls. Instead of 'REDRUM,' though, it usually looks more like this:

4. Objects in the house disappear all the time, and I find them later in strange places where I didn't put them.

5. Pictures on the walls are all hanging at an angle, even if I straightened them just a minute ago.

6. Electronic toys sometimes start up when no one's in the room or even awake.

7. Hearing muffled voices and whispering upstairs after bedtime, but when I go to check everything is quiet.

8. Several times I've walked into the kitchen to find the refrigerator door wide open. (Dramatic drops in temperature and doors that open by themselves are both signs you have a ghost.)

9. Peculiar handprints keep appearing on the walls. If I scrub them off, they're back the next day.

10. Sometimes I wake up from a dead sleep with the creepy feeling I'm being watched; a small apparition is at my bedside with an ominous message, like "My finger hurts."

Is your house haunted, too?

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7 Quick Takes about Being an Accidental Genius, Ridiculous Instructions from a Chocolate Company, and A Parent's Version of Groundhog Day

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

Phew, you guys. We did it. Family pictures for Christmas cards.

I'm not one of those moms who goes out and buys matchy-matchy outfits for pictures, but I try really hard to pick clothes for everyone that fall in the same color family. It's getting more and more difficult the more people we add to this freak show.

Usually I can find 4 outfits that look great together, but I get to the last family member or two and they own nothing that's even remotely close.

It also means that the night before pictures, half of everyone's closet is on my bedroom floor while I try to decide. Here's what I came up with:

Palette A:

Palette B:

Which one do you like better? Vote in the comments below.

—2—

We also couldn't find my son's church shoes, so he wore sneakers to the portrait studio. They've actually been missing for a few weeks, but I refuse to go out and buy a new pair. Because how do you lose a pair of church shoes? Did he come home barefoot one Sunday? They have to be somewhere.

Still, we tore the house apart and they didn't turn up. My son checked in the toilet tanks, people. The toilet tanks.

I have no other ideas as to where they could be.

—3—

One more thing about pictures: we arrived our standard 15 minutes late, but when I told them my name at the desk they said I was actually 5 minutes early for our 9:50 appointment.

I booked this thing a while ago so I can't say for sure that I did it on purpose, but I think I may be brilliant because I wrote 9:30 on the calendar. Did I just make a mistake or did I actually foresee us being late and fool myself into getting there on time? I may never know.

—4—

Phillip brought me home a handful of Dove chocolates from a church activity this week, on an evening that I sorely needed them. You know the days I'm talking about. I'd been doing kid duty by myself most of the day, I was exhausted, there was junk everywhere (including a random pair of underwear on the dining room table,) and I was still wearing the same clothes I'd worn to bed the night before.

I unwrapped my first chocolate in all my unwashed glory and read the message on the inside of the foil:

"Let your sensuousness shine through. Love, Dove."

So... do I need to brush my teeth first in order for that to happen, or...?

—5—

I've faked more smiles this week than I have in the last month combined, not only because of family pictures but also because my daughter started playing the recorder. There is something about that sound that haunts my dreams. I mean it, I literally had a nightmare about it a few days ago.

One of my page's Facebook fans told me that their kid's class learned the ukelele instead. Can I say this would be an infinitely better option? I know they're a little pricier than recorders, but I think the extra cost would be easy to justify. Because have you ever seen anyone unhappy listening to the ukelele?

And have you ever seen anyone happy listening to the recorder?

—6—

One of Phillip's favorite foods to make for himself are a Venezuelan sort of hamburger (sorry, South Americans, I know it's a poor comparison) called an arepa. It's like two corn-flour flatbreads with stuff between them.

I bought Phillip an arepa maker a few years back for his birthday that makes great arepas but unfortunately smells like burning human hair whenever it's turned on. Not sure if our model is defective and might burst into flames any moment now, or if that's just how it's supposed to smell.

Anyway, the kids were asking about it when the oh-so-familiar smell started wafting through our house and I reminded them that Daddy learned to make arepas when he was younger and served a mission for our church in Venezuela.

"That's right," Phillip said, "They remind me of when I used to be a good person."

—7—

Last of all, I'm glad that my day doesn't repeat itself like Groundhog Day until I get to places on time. If it did, I might still be stuck in 1998. How about you?


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Hand-Shaped Turkeys and Other Crafts That Will NOT Keep My Kids Busy While I'm Making Thanksgiving Dinner

I was leafing through a parenting magazine at the library the other day and saw an article on fun fall-themed crafts you can give your kids to keep them busy while you prep Thanksgiving dinner.

You know, stuff like having them weave brown and orange strips of paper through a yellow paper cut to look like an ear of corn. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that craft, and I may even do it someday, but not with the expectation that it will keep my kids occupied independently for more than 2 seconds. Only TV or shackling them to the wall in the basement could do that.

While I'm at it, here are 3 other great fall crafts that I shouldn't depend on to be my babysitter while I'm mashing potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.

1. Making Hand-Shaped Turkeys

Sure it sounds simple: have them decorate a tracing of their hand like a turkey and cut it out. No prep, no mess. What could be better?

Well, depending on which of my children you're talking about, they would either "finish" decorating it in 3.5 seconds and run away leaving 1,254 markers on the table for me to clean up, or get so into the craft that when I check on them 15 minutes later I'll find them cropdusting the floor with glitter. Also for me to clean up.

The toddler will see his siblings and want to participate, which for a toddler means getting rid of the middleman (the handprint) and coloring directly on the table, and the preschooler will refuse to attempt cutting out the complicated shape on her own (or attempt it and then burst into tears because she accidentally cut off the turkey's head.)

2. Coloring Placemats

In this classic, I'd draw a blank place setting (cup, silverware, and plate) on a big piece of paper for the kids to fill in with our Thanksgiving dinner. They'll fill up the page with their favorite foods such as mac and cheese, Goldfish, and sugar cereal, none of which are actually on the menu for Thanksgiving dinner.

It wouldn't be long before the first child would wander into the kitchen (A) claiming to be hungry, or (B) asking if I can serve Kraft mac & cheese for Thanksgiving dinner instead. Oh, and telling me that they think green beans, stuffing, or whatever else we're having is gross.

3. Creating Pilgrim Centerpieces out of Toilet Paper Rolls

Ah, the ubiquitous toilet paper roll craft. Ideally, the kids would sit still and happily color little pilgrims and Indian figures, cut them out, and glue them to toilet paper rolls to make cute little cylindrical centerpieces for the table.

Good idea, except I don't think it would take very long. Also, I'd then have used toilet paper rolls sitting in the middle of the table while my guests and I try to enjoy our Thanksgiving meal. Actually, multiple meals until January since if I throw away anything my kids make I might as well be throwing one of their appendages in the garbage for all the fuss they make about it.

I guess what I'm saying is, maybe crafts aren't the best way to keep my kids occupied while Phillip and I are busy cooking and washing dishes in the kitchen. Isn't that why iPads were invented?


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Let's Talk About Squirrels, Baby

Salt-N-Pepa live in concert. Love the backup dancers.
photo by David Burke

If you're going to be singing Salt-N-Pepa under your breath all day now, I'm sorry/you're welcome.

Seriously though, let's talk about squirrels.

We have a lot of squirrels here, since our backyard is basically a forest. And squirrels have one mission in life: to get food.

Shortly after we moved here we put some bird feeders on top of an 8-foot pole that we could see from our deck. Unfortunately we saw more squirrels up there than birds. Those things are tenacious climbers who really do have nothing better to do all day.

We greased the pole with WD-40 and that helped for a few days (it was also amusing to watch a squirrel try to climb a greased pole,) but we didn't want to be out there several times a week squirrel-proofing a pole. Believe me, that's the least of our yard maintenance worries.

So we bought a squirrel baffle, one of those ugly cone-shaped things to put on the pole and stop the squirrels from getting up there. But we'd still see them perched up there, literally hanging from their curled toes, eating seeds out of our feeders. I was totally confused as to how they were still climbing the pole.

Days later I just happened to see one take a flying leap off of our deck railing with outstretched arms, grab the pole just above the baffle 6 feet away like a freaking Navy SEAL, and shimmy its way up to the top.

I should have known then that we were fighting a losing battle.

Not long after that, we left our kids with a paid babysitter for the first time ever and went to a play. When we got home, the kids were in bed and the babysitter was thoroughly freaked out because "Um, there's an animal in your fireplace."

Needless to say, she didn't come back. I still feel kind of bad that she was stuck in the dark house after the kids went to bed listening to the scrabbling and scratching of the flying squirrel that somehow fell down our chimney.

At least we had the glass doors in front of the fireplace closed or she probably would have called 911.

Have you ever had a flying squirrel trapped in your fireplace? How do you get it out without letting it loose in your house?

Lucky for us, Phillip is an engineer and he devised a long channel made out of cardboard leading to the door. He opened the fireplace, chased the squirrel through the channel with a broom, and slammed the door. If that's not brilliant, I don't know what is.

(P.S: Later, when we decided to install a pellet stove insert inside the fireplace, we removed the glass doors and found a squirrel skeleton inside. Apparently this had happened before!)

Some things that happened in your house before you moved in, you just don't want to know about.

Things were mostly quiet on the squirrel front for years after that. I shouldn't have been surprised one night a few weeks ago to hear a persistent gnawing noise under the floor at my feet as I sat at the computer desk typing.

We have yet another flying squirrel, this time in our basement. We're trying unsuccessfully to catch him with one of those Havahart traps, but the thing is too smart and keeps eating the bait right out of the trap without getting caught.

So we're basically providing him with a free nightly buffet. I just hope he doesn't recommend our restaurant to his friends.

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7 Quick Takes about Not-So-Educational Song Lyrics, The Origin of the Hamburger, and How Not to Bargain for Animal Crackers

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

My preschooler has a new Leap Pad (thanks, Grandpa) and it has several educational songs on it that I hear playing occasionally. The catchiest one goes, "Punc, punc, punc, punc-tuation!"

The other day I heard my daughter walking around singing to herself, "Honk, honk, honk, honk-tuation!" I think I like her version even better.

(You can hear the original song in the video below as well as appreciate the sweet dance moves of this little girl, it was all I could find on YouTube.)

—2—

Phillip had a birthday and turned 100 this week. Or so he's been telling everyone.

"You're only as old as you feel," I point out to him.

"Exactly," he says.

—3—

Phillip's birthday was the most epic birthday fail ever, on my part. I mean, I remembered it, but that's about it. No gifts, no cake. Nada. November just snuck up on me and there were a couple of other things I was knee-deep in planning, and before I knew it his birthday was here. I have plenty more excuses, but I'll spare you the details.

"Sorry you had the worst birthday ever," I said that night after putting the kids in bed.

Phillip seemed genuinely surprised. "What? No, this was the best birthday ever!"

"Why??" I asked, totally confused.

"Because now I don't have to do anything for yours!" He proceeded to thank me for lowering the bar and we drank hot chocolate together.

And that's what 12 years of marriage looks like, apparently.

—4—

In my middle schooler's social studies class, they were supposed to think of what's necessary for a hamburger. The teacher's objective was to get them to say things like "farms" that were thinking a few steps further back than just ingredients like meat, lettuce, and buns.

My daughter's answer was "The Big Bang" because:

1. Hamburgers consist of cows and plants
2. Both cows and plants need water
3. Water wouldn't exist if earth were any closer to or farther from the sun
4. The sun (or earth, for that matter) wouldn't exist without the Big Bang
5. Therefore, the Big Bang is responsible for hamburgers.

The teacher blinked at her a few times and said, "We don't need to go back to the galactic level."

My daughter also reported that a friend who had social studies later in the day told her that the teacher prefaced the assignment by saying not to talk about the solar system.

—5—

This was an actual conversation with my preschooler as I was getting lunch ready:

"Can I have one animal cracker before lunch?"
"No."
"Two?"
"No."
"Three?"
"No."
"Four?"
"No."
(Holding up her outstretched hand) "How many is this?"
"Five."
"Can I have five?"

At this point I asked what made her think that if I wouldn't let her have 1, 2, 3, or 4, I would say yes to 5.

She considered my point for a minute and asked, "Six?"

—6—

Our toddler is going through a funny phase right now when he gets mad. Instead of the standard "throw yourself on the floor and have a temper tantrum" move, he yells unintelligible gibberish at us while running away as far as he can get.

Last night before family prayer Phillip asked him to put his toy away, so he did what any self-respecting 1-year-old would do and hurled it to the ground, hid his face in the curtains, and growled at us whenever we said anything to him.

May all your temper tantrums be this funny.

—7—

I'm not that great at planning ahead (see take #3) but I've started thinking about Christmas. If your family, like mine, tries hard to find ways to connect your kids with the true meaning of Christmas, please check out my giveaway for two free copies of the Names of Christ Advent Devotional sponsored by Heidi at A Lively Hope.

Each night of December, the kids get to make an ornament and there's a different Bible verse and discussion to have while they color. This is my first giveaway and I'd love it if you helped make it a success!

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Becoming a NICU Mom: My Story

If you've been reading this blog for a while and never heard me refer to my son as a preemie, it's because I never do.

At 36 weeks and 5 days, he was only technically premature by two days. When I mention the NICU and people ask "How early was he?" they seem almost disappointed at the answer!

I knew in advance I'd need a C-section because I had placenta previa. We had the surgery scheduled for 37 weeks but I didn't quite make it and ended up with an emergency cesarean a few days before. The procedure was complicated and scary for me, but as far as my son went it appeared that everything was fine at first.

When he was born they brought him over for me to hold, and wanted to take him to the nursery quickly afterward. I guess they don't like to have babies hanging out in the O.R. for longer than they have to. But I begged for them to let him stay for just a little while longer. In retrospect, I'm so glad I did that, because it ended up being the last time I would hold him for 5 days.

In the nursery, they discovered that his lungs weren't making enough surfactant, which basically meant that he was having to work too hard to breathe.

He was put under an oxygen hood in the special care nursery and not allowed to come out. I wasn't able to really absorb the news until later that afternoon; because of a bad reaction to medication during the C-section I was in and out of a groggy stupor for almost 6 hours.

When my head had finally stopped reeling, a nurse wheeled my bed into the special care nursery and squeezed it in next to my son's bed.

It had been a long day. A long 3 weeks, actually, from hospital bed rest to emergency C-section and now this. I think I single-handedly depleted the hospital of Kleenex that day.

Our hospital didn't have a proper NICU, and it soon became clear that my son was going to need one where he could be intubated.

His pediatrician made calls to several nearby hospitals that had both a NICU and a maternity ward so they could transfer the pair of us together, but they were all full.

The only NICU that had room was at Children's Hospital, and I wouldn't be able go with him. I would stay where I was recovering from my C-section for 4 days, and he would be in the NICU at Children's an hour away.

I didn't know how long it would be until the transport team got there.

"I want him to have a blessing before he goes," I said. I was having so much trouble even formulating a coherent thought that might pass as a prayer, but I did have the presence of mind to insist on this.

In our religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe in the reality of priesthood blessings of healing. Not that they'll always produce an immediate miracle, but that petitioning the help of God and putting the power of the priesthood on a sick person is always a good idea.

We called a friend from church who lived nearby, and within 15 minutes he was with us in the nursery. He and my husband Phillip put their hands on the baby's head to begin the blessing, and it wasn't until our friend turned to me and asked, "What's his full name?" that I realized he didn't have one yet.

I'd completely forgotten that new parents do normal, happy things like name their baby. We were so far removed from that world. This day had gone so differently than I'd ever imagined.

So my son was blessed as "Baby Evans." After the blessing he spit up some fluid and ended up not needing to be intubated until the next day.

After they finished the blessing, our friend turned to me and asked if I wanted one, too. Not a blessing of healing, but a blessing of comfort. Boy, did I. I couldn't even speak I was so choked up, I could only nod.

Our blessings, and the moment I saw him for the first time, were the only two bright spots in that dark day. As time goes on I forget how dark it really was. I'm shocked when I look at pictures from those first few days and weeks, when my smile never reached my eyes and I looked more tired than you'd think possible.

I would come to find over the next few weeks that when your baby is taken from you right after birth and put in the care of others, you start to feel like he's not really yours. The nurses in the NICU have to get your consent for medical procedures, but you have to ask their permission before holding him. It's almost like the hospital has a baby that you, for some reason, have special privileges to visit.

So I appreciated all that the transport team did. They called me "mom." They brought him over for me to kiss him goodbye. They suggested that the nurses turn my bed around so I could watch them place my son in the incubator. And then they rolled out of the room and were gone.

Getting ready to go to Children's Hospital.

When I returned to my postpartum room, there was a grainy baby photo and a tiny powder blue knitted cap on the bedside table. "This was his hat," the nurse said, almost apologetically. "He didn't wear it for long, but he did wear it."

There was just so little they could do, so little they could say to make up for the fact that there was no baby in the room.

That night in the hospital was lonely, but I was starting to feel a lot of pain from the C-section, and it sort of consumed me. I'd planned on breastfeeding but I didn't even think about pumping milk until a nurse suggested it the next day.

When he'd first gone to the NICU, it looked pretty hopeful that he'd be back in a day or two. But the days inexplicably stretched into one another with not a whole lot changing. First he was intubated, and then he got a feeding line through his belly button, too.

Phillip would visit him in the NICU and bring back pictures and videos for me to look at. I called the NICU once or twice a day for an update from the nurses.

My second daughter meeting her baby brother for the first time, in the NICU.

On Day 3 of my hospital stay I got a "hall pass" to go visit him. As we were pulling into the parking garage at Children's, the NICU nurses called and asked for permission to place a new IV. I said okay, but since it wasn't urgent I asked if it could wait until after our visit.

Apparently the nurses didn't understand my request and started right after we hung up, so when we arrived they'd already set up a sterile field for placing the IV and we weren't allowed in.

Phillip pushed my wheelchar into a tiny waiting room beside the NICU for a half-hour, where we didn't say much. I was mad at pretty much everything and worried about my incision pain coming back. My hospital wasn't allowed to send any pain meds with me, so I had to be back before they ran out.

They finally called us in and we walked past rows of identical isolettes with tiny babies in them, most of them much tinier than my son. Another couple was standing over their daughter's isolette, talking with each other and smiling. I wondered how long their baby had been there.

We arrived just as they finished peeling the tape off of his old IV site. It hurt so he was thrashing around and opening his mouth in that all-too-familiar jaw-shaking newborn wail, but it was totally silent.

"Why isn't he making any sound?" I asked, panicked and horrified.

"It's because of his breathing tube," the nurse explained. She saw the heartbroken look on my face and quickly added, "But it's actually good that he's responding and crying. It means he's getting stronger."

I couldn't hold him, I couldn't comfort him, I couldn't do anything except watch him lay there crying when he couldn't even cry. I turned and collapsed into Phillip and cried until a nurse asked if we wanted to go out in the hallway for a minute.

It had been easier, less messy, when I was stuck in my hospital oohing and ahhing over the pictures Phillip brought in. You could filter out the reality of the NICU if you were just looking at a picture. At least I'd been doing something by pumping milk for him every 3 hours in my hospital, but what about being here? I was so helpless here to do anything at all.

After our visit, we started the drive back to my hospital. We hadn't made it far from Children's when my heart skipped a beat: I forgot my baby! It wasn't even a thought, really, but a feeling of pure fear as if I'd gotten home from grocery shopping and looked in the backseat to find that I'd left him sleeping in the cart in the parking lot.

Even though I knew he was in the hands of competent nurses who were frankly better equipped to take care of him than I was at this point, I couldn't help it. That same panic washed over me every time I left the NICU. With every visit I got better at shaking off the feeling, but it always hit me just the same.

My next visit to Children's was better. My son was five days old and I got to hold him for the first time since his birth. Even though it took two nurses to maneuver him into my arms and arrange all his cords and wires, it was the best day.

I had to ask, by the way, to hold my son. My #1 piece of advice to people with babies in the NICU is to be proactive. Ask. Ask if you can change their diaper. Ask if you can put on their baby clothes. Ask if you can hold them.

I've found that on the whole, NICU nurses are an incredibly compassionate group who never forget that this routine day for them is not routine for you, but sometimes they might. And you might have to ask.

Our baby was in the NICU for 10 days. Comparatively speaking we had it easy. Many infants stay much longer, and for him it was just a question of when he'd be coming home, not if.

Gradually, he needed less and less oxygen and got off the breathing tube. We got a call saying he was ready to transfer back to our local hospital, followed by a second saying the cardiologist wanted to do one more test in the morning just to be sure, and it would have to wait until tomorrow.

The next day, his transfer was delayed again because there was a snowstorm and the ambulance couldn't get through the roads. It was almost like someone was playing a practical joke on us.

After that they ran out of excuses to keep him (or so we joked,) and he was transferred. I moved back in to one of the postpartum rooms as a boarder, and most days stayed with him there around the clock.

He still had a feeding tube running to his stomach through his nose, and before he could come home he had to start eating on his own and gaining weight. The next week was a blur of feeding, weighing, feeding again, and weighing again. But a happier blur this time.

After 10 days in the NICU and 8 days in the special care nursery, we were finally ready to bring him home! I was at home with my toddler and my mother when the call finally came, and we drove to the hospital feeling so excited, like we were about to break someone out of jail who'd been wrongfully imprisoned there for way too long.

Just a few weeks ago, my son's favorite pacifier, the kind with the little stuffed animal attached to it, broke. It had been his "graduation gift" when we left the NICU, what seems like a lifetime ago.

He's a healthy toddler now, and walked over to me asking (in sign language) for me to fix it. In the end, we couldn't fix it, but then again he's getting too old for pacifiers and he's probably ready to graduate from those, too.

Those initial days with our baby in the NICU felt like the longest days of my life. They were like the diagram of the universe drooping under the weight of a black hole. But it lifted. He's okay. I'm okay. And I'm so proud of how far he's come.

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