Team Zachary

I have been feeling very out of sorts. There are various reasons for this. I feel tired more so now then I ever did during the 1st trimester of this pregnancy. I barely sleep most nights. During the past few weeks my sleep has been riddled with worries and thoughts about stupid things I did or said on any given day and frantic thoughts about work/income/a new baby coming in to rock my world.

I have been off. I have not been feeling like myself at all. I am frustrated by this lack of self which I lost at some point during my pregnancy with Matthew and it took me a VERY long time to regain myself after giving birth. I cannot really even put into words how I am feeling. The best way has already been said, I just do not feel like myself.

I am needy, distrustful, nervous, tired, short tempered, you name it that is me. I do not like it. I do not like not being myself. After a long and thoughtful conversation with myself (what you do not talk to yourself?!??!) at midnight last night I am taking charge and not letting this get out of hand any longer... Now I am tired but trying to have a good attitude about the exhaustion. Just bear with me if I continue to seem vague, out of sorts or you know put my big fat foot in my mouth. Hopefully, now that I am done traveling I can get back to the regular routines of life, things will smooth out emotionally for me.

As some of you have read, I have told in short the story of Zachary. He is the son of the owners of the company I work for. He is 26 years old and for the past two years has been fighting not one but two kinds of cancer. He is not doing well at all. He has had two stem cell transplants. One was with his own and it did not work. He matched with two donors which is amazing and had a 2nd one a few weeks back. He is in a serious state. This young man truly has courage, faith and strength that my whimpering above puts to shame. If you met Zach, you would like him instantly this I can assure you.

Ann, the owner of the company, writes email updates on Zachary as often as she can. This morning she wrote this and it struck a cord with me:

"I have learned so many lessons from this journey. One of them is that the idea that there are people who give and another group of people who receive is just a silly, silly concept. Everybody gives and everybody receives. Life is about circulation. I can assure you that those who are perceived as 'having much' have received the most. Circulation keeps us all healthy, connected and free of the illusion that somehow we have independently created all that we have or are."

She also wrote: 'He looks horrible. He has lost a significant amount of weight. He has over a thousand blisters covering his body that make picking up a tissue painful. He will never be able to go out into the sun because of the radiation damage to his skin. And it not the case that we know if we are winning (against the cancer.) Not until the end of May when they test him again will they have any idea if the cancer is dying.' She said through all this Zach told her:

"Ann," he said, "from this situation I want to find more compassion and help people."

See what I mean about this young man?

If you have not given to a cause this year & are looking for a way to contribute consider doing this for research that can one day help someone you love or even just read about on some random blog. Please consider joining with his family, through the month of April, in a campaign to further support the extraordinary cancer research being conducted by the team at the University of Nebraska.

You can click on this Team Zachary link and go to the University of Nebraska Foundation website where you can contribute by credit card: www.nufoundation.org/teamzachary.

Please pass this along to anyone you know who might be interested to learn more or give to such a cause. And finally without giving anything financially please keep Zach in your thoughts because he sure could use them.

Tea for two

Yesterday, our friend and day care "provider", Kelly, had her air conditioning go out. Actually, I think it went over the weekend but yesterday it was 93 in good old Indiana. It was hot. So Kelly some how managed to keep four children under the age of 3 entertained until she could no longer handle the heat (I would have melted long before she did so YOU ROCK!) Then took the kids to the air at her neighbor's house. That neighbor being a piece of cake. Later, we picked Matthew up and went home as usual.

At dinner, we asked Matthew what he did during his day and he said "We went to Kate's house..."
"Wow", we said. "Well what did you do there?"
Matthew said with a thrilled and excited look on his face "we had a tea party! AND we had ice cream!." *pure rapture on his face.
"Wow", that is so cool", we said.

Later, I talked with Kelly and I told her about this conversation. Kelly said that Matthew was very excited about the tea set and got right into it. Also, that the above mentioned ice cream was from a play set of plastic ice cream that the kids all shared! As we talked about this I remembered that at Matthew's old day care, the kids who came early had tea parties in the morning. With real (herbal) tea, honey and milk! Matthew LOVED this activity more than anything!

One the of major reasons I relate this entire story to all of you few poor souls who read this blog... we have been trying to figure out how to get Matthew more comfortable with this day care transition situation. There is no doubt that Matthew loves his parents - he does not want us to leave in the morning. BUT he also LOVES him some Kelly's house as well because at the end of the day he does not want to leave there either. PLUS he misses his old daycare.

Case in point, we went to Kid Kazooey this past weekend. I realized most of you were probably all 'what the hell is a Kid Kazooey?' Kid Kazooey played music once a week at Matthew's old day care and Matthew was apparently quite taken by the Kid. Matthew told me after seeing Kid Kazooey that he loves him! Which is great, right?! Well, wrong (sort of), Matthew was terribly confused about things by Sunday. It dawned on me that I never really talked with Matthew before or after seeing Kid Kazooey about how he might feel about seeing this huge personality from his old day care. About seeing kids from his old day care and how that would make him feel. About a day care situation that really did offer Matthew some wonderful experiences that he obviously not forgotten...

Basically, we do a lot of talking with and to Matthew but hardly ever really get to talking about feelings and experiences that might affect Matthew. For instance, this morning we talked with Matthew about Kelly' house and how we had to go to work but we would be there after work to pick him just like yesterday. That he loves Kelly and Grayson and how it would be all right. Matthew immediately started a pretend cry and even tried the usual morning grab Daddy and don't let go routine but this time without the tears. At this point, we reminded Matthew what we talked about in the car on the ride over. We also engaged him by talking about perhaps having a tea party at Kelly's like the one they had yesterday at Kate's house. He gave us a kiss, jumped down and smiled as we left.

It all seems so simple, right? And it is. It is just that something I think we forget that these little people are just that - people with feelings, memories and emotions. That my BABY is no longer a tiny baby cooing and grasping and clinging to me for every thing... but a thinking, learning little being who can tell me what he is feeling and experiencing every day but he must be given the opportunity to do this. often. without me talking at him and being open to his life experiences... because thankfully he can tell me all of this - if I just stop, and listen.

Parenting is such humbling experience!