Viva Las Vegas

Part one in the series "Music Mondays in May" for my blog group Homesteaders & Homeschoolers.

Music has always been a big part of my life.
My father is one of those young dads.
He was twenty when I was born in 1971.
Because of his young age, my young life was submerged in the music that he loved.
One of those music loves was Elvis Presley.
My mom's sister, Jeanne, was a huge Elvis fan as well.
She even saw him live in concert not too long before he died.
Something I was always jealous of...come on, ELVIS! She saw THE Elvis!

In college my group of girlfriends were huge Elvis fans as well.
We knew the words to all of his songs and weren't afraid to belt them out at large decibels from our house on 916 Hovey Ave.
Graceland has been visited by all of us.
Las Vegas has been a travel destination for many of us since it's the land of Elvis Impersonators.
It's always fun to ride in an elevator next to a guy with huge sideburns and extra wide, dark sunglasses while trying not to snicker because Elvis is standing next to you.

I met Chad in the Fall of 1999.
We had a quick courtship and knew we wanted to do something out of the ordinary for our wedding.
We didn't have a lot of money so we knew we wanted to combine our wedding with a honeymoon.
A two for one deal.
Las Vegas sounded like the right place for us.
And when you think of Las Vegas and weddings you usually also think of Elvis.
It was decided.
We would get married in July in Vegas by Elvis.

Why we decided on July is beyond me.
Wait, I do remember...
my mom kept telling me "this date and that date won't work for me because of work."
Sigh...
So, the middle of July in the desert it would be.
I later remember declarations of "MY EYES ARE BURNING OUT OF MY HEAD!" from wedding guests because of the intense heat of the day.
Don't get married in the desert in July people.

This being the era before smart phones, we had to use a fax machine to get copies of restaurant menus from various places in Vegas for our "after the ceremony dinner."
We called and emailed a few different Elvis wedding places.
We picked the right place.
It was off of the strip and seemed like a real genuine place.
It was family owned and as I sit here and write this, I know we picked the very best spot.

Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel was where our wedding was held.
Thirty members of our family and friends made the trip to Las Vegas to be with us on our big day.
My niece was five years old at the time and since I wasn't going to have a flower girl, she instead became the camera girl.
She was in charge of handing out disposable cameras to each guest...remember this was before smart phones.
My girlfriend Tina stood up with me and Chad's brother Chris stood by his side.
I wore a black dress, 'cause I'm unconventional like that, and Chad wore shorts.
Elvis was great! (Elvis was the owner, Ron, and a super great guy.)
He sang three or four songs ( I forget the exact number now since it went down in 2000 and the heat of that day melted some of my brain away.)
He ended the ceremony with Viva Las Vegas and had the arm swings, lip curl, and leg lunges to go with it.
His white sequin suit filled the room with sparkles and was only overshadowed by the large amount of laughing, singing, and cheering by our guests.

It was a fantastic day and the start to a great journey with my hubbie Chad.

My best friend.
My source of support in what has become a difficult journey in our days as parents.
He makes me laugh and doesn't care when I fart in bed.
Well, he may care about that.
But all I have to do is starting singing Viva Las Vegas and all is forgiven...

Read more "Music on Monday" from...
Carla
Melissa
Laura

Going To Be Normal

Zoe is doing really well.
Her hair seems to be growing.
Her energy is way up.
She has normal sized bruises on her legs from playing out in the yard.
Any kind of bruising makes me nervous for her.
I look at the bruises and then keep looking at them to make sure they are going away in a traditional bruising kind of way.
For those that don't know...what peeked my curiosity about her in the September of 2010 were the large bruises she had developed on her legs and lower torso.
I'm talking 2 inch long bruises.
That were very dark.
And that never got better.
She is allowed to see her regular pediatrician now (all hail Dr. Benjamin Brooks!) if she has a sore throat or a sore ear or a sore anything.
Fevers still need to be addressed by the oncologist because she still has her port in place.
I just saw Dr. Brooks this morning (Gigi has a pussy red, pus filled, sore ear- poor girl) and I told him the news and we were both grinning like a couple of cats who spotted a fish flopping on the grass by the pond.
He saved her life and it's been a long time since he has been able to treat her.
She's a success story (knockin' on wood!) and we are fortunate that her cancer was caught when it was and that our pediatrician is a rock star.
I truly believe that if I had waited another week or two to take Zoe into the pediatrician in September of 2010 her outcome wouldn't be what it is today.
She more than likely wouldn't be here with us.

So, in honor of her life and the fact that she's doing so well now, I have a big treat for her...
I'm going to let her be a normal kid again.
I'm going to stop worrying so much.
I'm going to join her on her school field trip next week and we aren't going to worry about germs or fevers or "Hey, stop running!"
We are going to be like all of the other girl/mom groups that are out and about next week.
And the week after that.
And the week after that.
And the week after that...

Keeping Our Lives Upside Down

Part Two in a series from my Homesteaders & Homeschoolers group blog topic..."When and Why to Start a Family--Highlights and Lowlights"

We were only going to have one child.
It's easy to get around with just one child.
We could drive a small car.
Vacation would be that much cheaper.
Zoe was such a good kid.
No problems ever.
Then it happened.

I was so tired the spring of 2008.
I would tell Zoe (who was 3 years old) that mama was just going to close her eyes for a bit.
Two hours later I would wake up.
Remember, I said Zoe was a good kid.
She completely kept herself busy while I was zonked out on the couch.
Something felt "off" and I told Chad to pick up a pee stick for me on the way home from work.
Silence.
"Just do it!" I bellowed.

I peed on that stick, ate dinner, then went to check on the pee stick's status.
Sigh.
Positive.
I didn't want to be pregnant.
At all.
When did this conception even take place for gosh sakes?
Well, if I was going to be pregnant it had better all be for another girl.
Since I was over 35 years of age (another reason I didn't want to be pregnant) I had to go to a Maternal/Fetal Specialist.
The ultrasound tech that day was a man.
As was the doctor I saw.
Manness was ripe in the air that day.
They both declared that the fetus within my over 35 aged body was a male.
WHAT?!
I called Chad as I was leaving my appointment.
I paused on the skywalk when he answered.
"Thanks a lot."
He knew by those three words that there was a boy in my belly.
He knew that the sperm determines the sex of a fetus and he apologized.
Again and again.

I did come to terms with the fact that a wee penis was forming in my body.
I bought boy type clothing.
I bought boy type bedding.
We even discussed names and after some thought we decided our son would be named Oliver Ash and that he would grow up to be a MLB player.
I was good with things now.
I had conceded and had accepted that I would have a daughter and a son.
Zoe and Oli.
I had no morning sickness...again.
I received zero stretch marks...again.
It looked like a super-duper, extra-large pumpkin was stuffed under my shirt.
All was good.

Another planned c-section.
I was not going to do that VBAC crap (vaginal birth after cesarean) that the OB was pushing on me.
I had never felt a labor pain and was fine going to my grave having never felt one.
We picked the date of November 14th.
I had a real gung-ho doctor and she scheduled things bright and early.
So, Zoe went to grandma and grandpa's house for breakfast and Chad and I headed to the hospital to welcome our new son to the world.

So, as I'm strapped down in the crucifix position with painful gas bubbles rising up into my shoulders and a barf bucket next to me when it happened.
The baby was plucked from my uterus and the nurse standing behind me declared "that's not a boy."
Well then what in the hell was it?!
I'm supposed to be having a boy!
Was it really a cat this time?
Or was his hardware so mangled that he was going to need surgery to repair his stuff and he may look more like a mangled her?
The doctor then said "Nope that's a girl!"

After much explaining to my parents, the new big sister, relatives and friends whom Chad called, we were elated to have another daughter in our family.
We had to come up with a name quickly.
Oliver then became Gigi.
That's not short for anything, folks.
Just Gigi.

I'll never forget for as long as I live what my girlfriend Kelly told me later on..."I never knew anyone who could will away a penis like you did."
"If you want something bad enough, you can make it happen" was my response.
And I'm very thankful toward Chad's sperm.
I'm not mad at him anymore...

Check out my fellow Homesteaders & Homeschoolers "second in the series" blog stories on motherhood...
Laura @ Where Love Starts
Melissa @ Teach Academy
Carla @ Our Happy Chaos

Starting Life Upside Down

Part One in a series from my Homesteaders & Homeschoolers group blog topic..."When and Why to Start a Family"

Starting a family is something some girls dream about from childhood.
I was not one of those girls.
I didn't play with dolls.
During my early 20's I would emphatically state that I was NOT going to have kids.
I met my husband and we had a fast courtship (10 months).
After 5 years of hanging out with just him, traveling, enjoying each other's company, it happened.

I was in my early 30's and we were at Ravinia in Highland Park.
An outdoor music venue where you can sit on a blanket, drink beer, eat goat cheese and listen to Lyle Lovett, Elvis Costello, Peter Paul and Mary, or whoever happened to be making music that summer.
I don't remember who we were there to see, but I do remember what Chad said.
A young girl, probably 5 years old, ran by us on the sidewalk.
Chad said "isn't she cute?!"
And at that moment I knew that we needed to have a child.
And I hoped it would be a girl. 
We didn't have to try too hard.
We easily got pregnant (I now think I am one of those ladies that could get pregnant if my man looked at me and I wasn't on birth control.)
Pregnancy was easy, too.
I had an infatuation with Sour Tangerine Altoids.
I would eat them by the tin full.
I didn't get morning sickness (I think I barfed once or twice only at work, much to my co-worker Sarah's disgust!).
I didn't get stretch marks.
My skin looked FABULOUS!
The only issue occurred in the last trimester when Chad said I snored so loudly that he thought the neighbors were going to start complaining and he was forced to sleep in the other room.

Then about three weeks before my due date, I was told by the doctor that she thought this baby girl, still residing firmly up against both my lungs and my bladder, was upside down.
An external version was briefly talked about...briefly because once my OB started talking about trying to turn the baby around from the outside of my belly and that it had to be done in the hospital in case of trauma and they would need to get the baby out stat, I firmly said nope.
So a c-section was scheduled for February 11th.
Great.
Now I had to go back into my baby books and read about c-sections because I had skipped all of those chapters!
We arrived around 11:00 or noon and then proceeded to patiently wait until about 5:00 to go into surgery.
When you have a scheduled c-section you get bumped back when those ladies who are trying to vaginally deliver a baby suddenly can't.
So after the emergency c-sections were taken care of, it was our turn.  
I was getting super hungry since I hadn't eaten anything all day.
It was an easy procedure.
She came out kicking, really she did.
My doctor declared, "she just kicked me!" as she reached in to get her from my uterus.
I thought she sounded like a kitten mewing when she stared crying.
All I knew at that point was cats and dogs.
Now I had a person who sounded like a cat. 
I was beyond overwhelmed that a person had just been pulled out of my body.
And even more overwhelmed when we had to take her home and do this human rearing ourselves.

We named her Zoe.
Zoe is a Greek name that means LIFE.
And she is our life.

We have had to help save her life.

We have had to watch her little body and mind endure so much stress and trauma in this short life she's only begun to live.  

We can't wait to see what her life holds for her.

To be continued...

My interweb group of friends (Homesteaders & Homeschoolers) and I decided to do some posts together.
This month's theme (the rest of April anyway) is about our journey into motherhood.
Check out their stories, too.
Laura
Carla
Melissa

Doing It All

Days and weeks can go by now and everything seems ordinary.
The girls go to school.
Dinner together every night.
Zoe has a test on telling time on an old fashion clock with hands.
Dance and piano lessons.
The only thing that really makes Zoe seem different nowadays is her hair. Or lack thereof.
So, when we have days where childhood cancer, specifically Zoe's journey through leukemia, spills open in front of us we become exhausted.
Again.
There's my overwhelming desire to give back to those that have saved my daughter.
Ways to do that are sharing our story with everyone.
Her story.
Via pictures and news stories.
All to bring awareness to the affects of childhood cancer and what we can do to help ease the pain of treatments, to find cures.
I have no intention of exploiting my daughter and her disease.
Her struggles.
Her dreams.
But if people don't SEE things like a little girl without hair, a little girl that has had to endure chemo, a little girl who has had to overcome tremendous turmoil, a little girl who misses her friend who didn't survive cancer, they just don't care.
People are visual creatures.
Photos and words have impact.
And if we can give back somehow to the doctors and the medicine that have saved our baby, we will do that.
Zoe may not remember a lot of what life was like during the initial onset of her cancer.
But we are providing her with memories of what she has overcome.
We are providing her with memories of the good we are trying to do in this big bad world that has allowed her to get cancer.
Memories of amazing encounters with people we wouldn't meet if cancer hadn't entered her world.
Zoe met the Governor of Illinois.
And a State Senator.
When she was eight years old.
The Governor got down to her eye level and spoke to her about her braveness, her good heart, and her courage to help others.
A memory that will last forever.
We want her to have these impressions in the forefront of her mind.
Not always needles, nausea, surgery.
We are giving her hope for the good she can do in this world.
Because she can do it all...

Pushing Forward While Looking Back

I was looking through old photos and thought I would share with you what our farm has been and what it's becoming.

Just like off-the-shoulder sweaters, Biz Markie, and Manhattans....what's old is new again.

Our home's first owner, W.E.

Same porch, different rocking chair

This farm used to be a dairy operation.

Then it was just a family homestead.

That's what it is today.

My children are the 6th generation of my dad's side of the family to live on this land.

I've heard stories (and seen a few photos) of days when sheep grazed in the front yard, when the road out front was dirt and not paved, when the barn housed cows and pigs, and the silo was full of grain.

 

My dad and his grandfather Walter

From my own memory, my grandfather and my great uncles Howard and Dale had enormous and elaborate gardens on our property.

Pumpkins, the sweetest sweet corn imaginable, peas, eggplant, beans to snap, rhubarb.

Anything you can imagine, they grew it.  

We had a garden for a few years.

Nothing as grandiose as theirs, though.

I'm happy to report that my cousin Ellen and my father are keeping up with that part of our history at their own homes.

Ellen grows sweet potatoes that are as big as her own head and my dad is an expert asparagus, strawberry, onion grower.

But, our garden area is now enclosed in a horse pasture.

Gardens would have been seen here, to the left, and
straight ahead on the other side of the fence.

My dad recently stated that maybe we should build some raised beds for the garden.

Great idea retired guy!

A goal I've had for quite some time is to get bees on the property.

I took a class, before Zoe got sick, at the local community college and it was all about beekeeping.

Totally awesome stuff.

And we want to introduce chickens again.

Now, I'm not a big fan of the cluckers, but I am a big fan of eggs.

My dislike for them stems back to the great chicken attack of 1980.

Short version of that story goes like this...me on the porch, eggs under a bush about 50 feet away, disgruntled hen coming around the corner, disgruntled hen on my head pecking away, me running around shrieking with said chicken still on my head.

Hence, I'm not a fan of fowl.

But, that wasn't as bad as the guinea hens that lived on this property when I was young that would roost in the trees and then jump down at us as we walked through the yard.

Awful beasts, really.

I won't even get started on my cousin Ellen's fear of cows.

Another day perhaps.

Anywho, I can tolerate chickens much better now that I'm a grown up.

I would love for my dad and Chad to build some nesting boxes/roosting areas in the barn for some cute and fuzzy egg layers.

Bees would be beneficial to my plants (for their pollinating properties) and for my love of honey.

I do worry though that my honey may have a slightly salty taste to it because of our salt water swimming pool.

Every summer the pool deck becomes a honey bee bar as they line up for a drink from tiny pools of saltwater on the deck.

What a bee eats a bee regurgitates and that's what honey is.

Bee barf.

Nice, huh?

Anyway, enjoy these pictures of our farm's history along with some pictures of what life is like here today.

My grandmother Dorothy and Ellen's grandmother Marie 
with the original second story.
This was probably in the 1920's.

I love this picture:

a party under the trees on the lawn in the heat of summer 

 

The original kids of this farm...
Dorothy, Marie, and Dale
May, 1931

The current kids of this farm...
Zoe and Gigi
July 2012

This is a lovely photo...the past emerging again

An aerial photo taken in the 1980's

  

I hope we are making them proud...

Our Year End Recap

It's the last day of 2012.
It's been quite a year for our family.
An end to chemotherapy for our now 7 year old.
Something I thought I would never have to say, yet couldn't wait to say!
We are hoping 2013 is full of nothing but good news for her.
Good news and good health.
And now, a pictorial review of our latest year that's just about behind us...

We celebrated our daughters turning another year older... 

We partook in holiday fun...

We went out of town to visit exciting new places and to also see familiar faces...

Little Rock

NASA

Galveston, Texas

state fair



Closer to home, Zoe represented Camp COCO at the Midwest Charity Horse Show and had a great week on Lake Bloomington with her fellow campers...

We heard two piano recitals...

Zoe participated in horse riding and standing lessons...

We decorated a tree in Central Park with our family for childhood cancer awareness...  

Gigi went to school for the first time...

And Zoe got eyeglasses...

We rounded up about 40 of our closest friends and family.

Friends who came from near and as far away as Texas and Omaha.

We gathered to walk for a cure.

To unite for hope and hugs.  

To remember Jake, who left us far too soon.

We battled on through the intense heat and drought of the summer by cannonballing into our pool and canoodling with our pets, including our newest addition Willie...

Zoe encountered fewer hospital stays in 2012, but they still existed for her. 

She was able to be "normal" though as she played softball and danced.



Zoe with her friend Zoe



We are hoping that the new year brings us much joy, more travel, more time with friends, and a new found happiness of childhood for Zoe.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!