A Post Support Group Treat

Is there anything that fries and softserve can't cure? Well, yes.

But at least they make a valiant effort.

The Neighbor Kid

We are occasionally lucky enough to catch him leering down as we pass.

Best Friends

One of the hardest things about moving away from Walla Walla was leaving our friends. I have never in my life lived in one spot as long as I did in Walla Walla. It's where I graduated, met Jared, got married, had a baby, made a home. We left already looking forward to going back to visit. And we will. But it won't be what we imagined.

One of the families we grew close to during our time in Walla Walla was the St. Clairs. While we had known them for quite a while, we didn't begin getting to know each other until our little girls were on the way. For some reason we had always travelled in parallel groups rather than in the same. Ryann and Kayla brought us together and bind us still. Jared and I are still able to see a bit of Ryann growing up in watching Kayla and experience a bittersweet thrill at every little milestone we hear about her reaching.

This November, just a few weeks after Ryann's second birthday, the St. Clairs are coming for a week long visit. We cannot wait to see them again. We're already planning meals and zoo outings and museum trips. And we're so looking forward to having a toddler in the house again.



An early Ryann-Kayla playdate. The very first one ended with Jason (Kayla's Daddy) in Jared's jeans.
Another story for another time.



Taken during the small window in which Kayla outpaced Ryann in the motor skills department.

Ryann's half-birthday party.



Playdate at Southfork.



Early standing adventures.



'The Girls' at Kayla's birthday party.
Ryann - 9 months, Kayla - 1 year, Chloe - 1 year, Natalie - 9 months

 

After playing in the sprinkler, Ryann and Kayla taunted the dog.



First experience camping.



Reading Winnie the Pooh is apparently a riot.



On second thought, it's a very serious business.



Sabbath school cracker break.



Shopping cracker break.



Time for a quiet one-on-one.



Ryann and Kayla's last playdate. This was taken during the 'trash supper' the St. Clairs and Jared had to clean out our fridge while packing up for Lincoln. I was in Lincoln for training at the time.



Watching Death Come

When I was younger, I had a cat named Bob. Bob was a beautiful longhaired black cat who was stupendously dim-witted and amazingly lovable. We actually went through a terrible few months when Bob was a half grown young thing because he was such a sweet tempered cat that he would never stand up for himself and we just so happened to also have a half grown red-freckled cowdog at this same time who loved Bob. She loved Bob so much that she would regularly drag him up and down our deck by his luxurious black fur. She would gnaw and drool into his ruff. She would pounce on his belly. And Bob would lay there and try to continue purring. As a result of this friendship, Bob did go through a fairly rag-tag looking half grown phase.

One day my Mom went out to feed the cats and came back in carrying Bob. We don't know exactly what happened to him, whether it was a snake bite or poison, but he was sick and weak and dehydrated. I kept him by my side all day and every ten minutes or so would feed him droppers of water. He was so weak and limp, but so happy to be near us all day. I thought he would recover in a few days.

In the evening, when I was feeding him another dropper of water, he suddenly went slack. His eyes went dim and his head flopped over. After a second, he looked back up and I continued feeding him water. It happened again. Then he started choking on the water. I was in my room alone with him and when he started choking I got so scared. I had no idea what was happening. I yelled for Mom. She came running in and I pushed Bob into her arms. He was starting to seize. I ran out of the room. I just couldn't stay and watch and not be able to do anything. I felt guilty. A few minutes later, Mom came out of the room without Bob. 'He died.' I was shocked. Just the day before he had been fine. How could such a loving little being just be gone?

When we were in the hospital with Ryann, we thought that we'd be walking out in the morning. When they started talking about tranferring us up to the ICU and then to the Omaha Children's Hospital, and we still thought that it just meant that we were in for a hard week, trying to manage schedules and vehicles so as not to leave Ryann alone in the hospital. We never thought that we would be walking out without her.

In the hospital, Jared and I took turns holding her. Although Ryann was unresponsive when we first arrived at the hospital, after she had massive amounts of fluid through her IV, she was generally alert even if she was oddly limp the entire night.

But the last time I held her it was different. I saw Bob. And I knew.

I hoped I was wrong. I prayed that I was being morbid. But I knew. And this time I was the Mom who had to hold her until the end. I was the one who had to watch my baby's eyes dim. I was terrified of what I knew was coming. Terrified that I wouldn't be able to make myself stay. Terrified that I would run out of the room because I wasn't strong enough to hold her until the end.

I wasn't strong enough, but I held her anyway. I was scared, but I tried to not panic. And when she passed out once again and the doctors asked me to hand Ryann to them and leave the room, I did. And I knew she was gone.

But I had been with her when she needed me. I held her hand and sang her songs and loved her.

Love her.

 

Ryann's Half-Birthday Party

Photos by Aric Vyhmeister

Family Dress-Up

Neither Jared or I have ever been big into Halloween. I agree that it's fun to dress up and hang out with friends, but I've found that it's just way to easy for things to start skewing scary or sluttish. I have no appreciation for either and would generally prefer to not hang out in the midst of several hundred horny headless horsemen.

Last year, one of our good friends hosted a small party at their house. Two of Ryann's best friends would be there as well, Kayla and Chloe (the daughter of the hosts). For some unknown reason, I was seized with the desire to make up an amazing set of Family Costumes.

Jared and I threw ideas back and forth and finally settled on Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the White Rabbit. I stayed up entirely too late sewing Ryann's costume, but the effect was amazingly worth it. Ryann was always a ham, and she quickly realized that her little blonde wig was a hit. She refused to take it off all night! I finally had to remove it a few hours after we arrived because she was overheating so badly.

I think that this year Jared and I will probably revert back to our former ways and stay in on Halloween. Possibly start brainstorming for next year.

Kayla - Ladybug, Chloe - Alpine Girl, Ryann - Alice

Travels

Since Jared and I are hoping to add to our family in the relatively near-ish future, we have utilize this short period of quiet to travel. So far we have visited friends in Iowa, road-tripped it down to Kansas City (to pick up Jared's long awaited Vespa), and flown to Newark. We have trolled the shops on the banks of the Mississippi, chatted up bikers in KC, and sipped coffee on 5th Avenue.

Tomorrow we're flying out to Chicago to spend four days soaking up the Windy City. I'm looking forward to running the lake-front trails, eating in Chinatown, and once again seeing the Chagall windows in the Art Institute.

Ryann's best friend, Kayla, (and her parents) are coming for a week long visit in November and my Mom will be here at the beginning of the month. My Mom will be here over Ryann's second birthday and we're planning on beginning work on sorting her things and turning her room into a guest room. I have no idea how that will go, but it feels good to have a goal in mind and to know that there will be someone here to help us.

At the end of January we'll be flying into New Orleans to spend a few days before shipping out on a Carribean cruise with the rest of my family. My bitty neice, Mei, will be almost ten months by then. I'm looking forward to a relaxing family vacation.

Jared's hoping to enroll at the Goethe Institute in Chicago for an intense four-week session in German next summer. Hopefully this will be the end of our random excursions for a bit, as we're planning to add a small Hiscock in the fall.

We're both loving the travels and we're happy to be spending so much time with our friends. But I think that the trip we're most looking forward to, and yet dreading at the same time, is a distant return to Walla Walla to show the rest of our family the spots where their sister lived.

Pining

I have rarely been truly content. I usually struggle with being excited for the next step, the next thing. It gets annoying, even for me. I always wanted to be a year older, to be reading the next chapter, to be taller. It's so frustrating because after I get to that longed for point, I realize that I never truly appreciated the last step while I was in it, and yet I would already be pushing to move on to the next point.

A strange thing happened when we found out I was pregnant. I felt settled. Happy. Content. I was scared that I would lose this feeling, since I really had no idea how I had finally come upon it in the first place. I made a point to relax into it. I purposefully loved every moment of being pregnant. I had no idea whether or not this feeling would last, but I loved it. Several times I marveled to Jared about how amazing it was to thoroughly enjoy every stage of experiencing Ryann. And it didn't leave. I was always able to completely enjoy every single stage our little family went through. It was incredible.

It's gone now, that feeling of fully living. I hope that I can find it again. Now that I've experienced it and know that it really is as great as it seems it would be, I miss it terribly. But this time, instead of constantly being pulled forward toward the next great thing, I'm also being pulled back. If there were any way to turn back time and relive the two years we had with Ryann, I would do it in a heartbeat. I would choose to live in a constant loop of those two years rather create new memories.

But I can't.

Instead I long for the next thing. I sometimes find myself so focused on the future that I haven't valued what I have now. And while that might not seem like such a terrible thing at times, I can't help but think of how I would feel now if I had done that when we did have Ryann. What if I hadn't soaked up every moment, every smile, every belly laugh and scrape?

So I try to look around instead of only forward or back. I make a point of meeting new friends and eating good food and enjoying these last summer days. And I hope that someday I can again find more than just a moment of that complete contentment.



Pictures from our last playdate with Ryann's best friend, Kayla, before we moved.
Ryann was a bit of a daredevil.