Previous Post came back to bite me.

So, I blog about how ungrateful and spoiled I am with my modern appliances, etc. And, what happens the following day? ICE STORM!! Knocks our power out from 4 am until 8 pm! All the boys home from school for a snow day, no electricity which, out here, equals no water either and of course, no furnace or oven. It was cold! And, I was tired and crabby.

I never should have blogged about those stinkin' pioneers! They came back to bite me in the butt! I was so cranky yesterday thru that whole ordeal, that I was complaining that at least the pioneers had a wood burner and split wood to go ahead and burn! I had NOTHING! After the whole morning of listening to fighting, stir-crazy kids, we went to KFC for lunch to warm up a little. Upon returning, I OK'd the LEGO's in the living room (only room with a BIG window!) and went to bed. I had been up since 1:30 am fighting the storm with the newspapers and was DONE! I figured the boys could handle it for awhile by themselves. And, besides, I was only in the bedroom down the hall. After a good nap, I woke up a little happier, but still cold.

Oh, well, over all, the boys did OK - considering.

I'll write about the day a little more later.

We are spoiled -- or "why I'm glad I live in the 21st century"

I stumbled upon this portion of another woman's blog today while I was feeling sorry for myself about the broken hot water heater:

"I’ve been thinking a lot lately about pioneer women, real pioneer women who, whether through loyalty, optimism, idiocy, or a combination of all of the above, made that covered wagon journey west to parts unknown in search of a new life and new opportunities and to face both foreseen and unforeseen dangers.

....the fact that David the Husband is out of town on business again and the majority of the running of the farm and the caring for the children and house rests on my slumped insecure shoulders. (My mother has been telling me to hold my shoulders up since my first memories.) Just getting teenaged boys ready for school and driving them the three miles to the bus stop, followed by morning farm chores, feeding dogs, all whilst caring for a toddler was a challenge for my inefficient slow-moving self. And I have a whole day of much of the same ahead of me. I can just imagine someone like me trying to do it back in the true pioneer days, without motor vehicles or modern appliances, probably pregnant with my sixth or seventh child (some of which I have most likely buried in the family cemetery) and my husband out clearing land or working cattle for days on end, not knowing whether he was dead or alive or whether bandits or Injuns would arrive on my doorstep at any moment. I honestly don’t know how they did it. Modern laundry makes my whelm runneth over. Envisioning myself by a riverbank scrubbing the prairie dust off the clothing of a whole passel of children against a washboard or even worse a rock, well I just can’t picture it.
Here’s to the women who preceded us, women who worked harder than any of us do today, who probably received only a smattering of gratitude and enjoyed little if any free time. I will endeavor to think of you when I feel put upon or overworked because, if you think about it, my life is cake in comparison. And I like cake. "

All I was doing as I was feeling sorry for myself was heating water up on the stove to wash dishes. On my propane range with it's electric ignitors, by the way. No matches, no open flames, really, no wood to haul in and keep stoked. Heating up water, FROM the FAUCET, on my modern range, made me feel bad! I am truly the most ungrateful person alive.

I could feel sorry for us for the amount of $$ it is going to cost us to replace this appliance in December, but I have learned thru a few lean winters of living with a husband who is an Operating Engineer (aka, no work in winter), not to even start that. It always works out and God has always taken care of us. I think that sometimes, the more I fret about things, the rougher God makes them -- just to try and break me!

We all think we have "rough" lives....with our modern appliances, and even more modern entertainment options. I type this now on a wireless laptop (granted that I "acquired", not bought, but still...) while my rather large TV hangs on the wall spewing a Food Network Show thru the satellite dish on my roof. Yeah, I've got it rough --after all, I had to heat up water on my stove this afternoon to wash my dishes. Again, nice clean water that got pumped out of the ground by an electric pump in my basement and up into my faucet with no effort on my part other than lifting the little handle by the sink. Uh-huh -- ROUGH!

Maybe, as I think more about my ungratefulness, I should have put this in the title here, too:

"Glad I live in the USA (or the "west") in the 21st century. Many, many people, even in these modern times, do not have any of the luxuries that we take for granted. African women carrying water on their heads to their homes miles away. South American farmers living like our pioneers did 100+ years ago. People as close as Mexico collecting rainwater in a cistern on their roofs to have a gravity fed (cold) shower in their mud brick or cinder block homes. I have a picture of the "toilet" built for us as the visitors in a village in Mexico when I went with a group from ICHS in 1989. It had walls of cut cactus, a large pit in the ground and a OLD, recycled wooden toilet seat on the little box built above the pit. They built that for us, knowing we could never handle just going out behind a cactus.

OK, time for me to go into my modern kitchen and flip the handle to get some cold water heating up again. I am also going to turn another handle and watch as my stove and oven heat up to cook the supper I am preparing for my family. It snowed pretty good last night. I'm glad I don't have to put my boots on, get water from an outside well and firewood from a pile outside.

Like that blog I quoted earlier said, "My life is cake in comparison. And, I like cake."

HAPPY 7th BIRTHDAY!!

Well, 7 years ago -- right about this time in the morning-- I woke Joe up to tell him that I think we needed to go to the doctor. I was pregnant with Curtis and had gotten Chris off to school, parked Clayton at the table with play dough, and had taken a shower. As I was drying off, I noticed that my legs were not "staying dry" -- I was leaking amniotic fluid. We had an appointment for an ultrasound right after lunch, so I wasn't too panicked. Joe was laid off from work and still in bed. Besides not being ready to have a baby and it being WAY too early, I was NOT ready for Chris and Clayton to be gone away from home yet. I think Chris had put on his last pair of clean socks and possibly last pair of underwear. Washing whites was on the "list" for the morning. So, I threw those white clothes in the washer and started packing other clothes in bags for the 2 other boys. Whites were done being washed and in the dryer when I finally got Joe moving. We called the Dr. and told him what was going on. The nurse said to forget the ultrasound app't and get to the hospital before any contractions started. We packed Clayton up along with the, now clean, clothes for both boys and called Great-gramma VdWall. Nana was still working at the Library and was at work that morning. Gr.Gramma was more than happy to take Clayton for a little while. We dropped him in Lansing and proceeded to the hospital in Dyer. They put me in a bed, on a monitor, and soon decided that I had lost too much fluid and whether we were all ready or not, THIS WAS THE DAY!


Curtis was not actually due until the end of January. So this added another level to the delivery. They put him at about 34 weeks -- a little early, but not detrimentally so. Early enough that they had a NICU transport team on call. There was no NICU in Dyer, so the options there was to transport any babies in need of that to the Hammond Campus of St. Margaret's.


I labored most of the day on Pitocin. Once they decided that "this was the day" they got me on pitocin right away, since no real contractions were happening on their own. That pitocin is nasty stuff. The nurse also kept "checking" me. She said she could not get a good "feel" on the babies head. Finally late in the afternoon, after she had taken a sandwich that Nana had sneaked in for me away, she had another nurse come in and "feel". They determined that the baby was breech -- he was not head down as he would have been in a few more weeks. I can't remember if I had an ultrasound to confirm that or not, we would have to ask Joe. Regardless, breech baby + 6 weeks early = C-section. That was a scary proposition, but necessary at that point. I remember Joe calling Nana pretty frantically and she showed up to sit with him for awhile (maybe thru the surgery?)


Anyway, at 7:31 pm, Dec. 17th, 2001, Curtis Wayne Propst made his way into the world. He was doing pretty well considering how early he was. I remember waiting desperately for him to cry and he did wail fairly quickly to let us know he was OK there and could breathe.


They did transport him within that hour to Hammond, so I was 36 hours in a different hospital than my baby. My "manic-ness" helped with the quick discharge and the fact that we were going to be spending time in the NICU helped, too, I'm sure.


Curtis spent the longest 10 days of my life, so far, in the NICU in Hammond. He was never on a respirator or anything. He was just small and kept forgetting to breathe whenever he got a little excited. (Crying apnea). We had to survive Christmas w/o him, but he came home the morning of December 27th. That was a long week for Chris and Clayton and Nana & Papa, too, I'm sure as the boys spent most of those 10 days at Nana's.


Curt is a healthy, happy (sometimes!) 7 year-old today. He is a smart, energetic first grader who fights with his brothers constantly. Curtis is definitely ALL BOY. He is our only child with blue eyes and has the curliest hair of any of the boys. As frustrating as his goofy attitude can be some days, this child is a real blessing and gift from God. It will be fun to see where God takes each of the boys in their lives, won't it?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, my little one..... even though you'd cringe right now for me calling you precious ... I will call you precious. You were the one who needed me the most at first and now most days pretends you don't need me at all. I do notice, though, that you are the one who gives me the best hugs at bedtime and whether you like it or not, I notice that some days you need some extra attention as the middle child.

I love you, short one..... :)

I survived the basement, now to make it thru a snow day!

I made it thru the basement purge the other day. Was able to take 4 garbage bags to Goodwill on Saturday, pack up 2 tubs for the barn and sort thru both closets down there. I feel pretty good about it. It looks pretty good, compared to how it was!

Now, today is a "snow" day -- there is really no snow, but ICE! It was treacherous this morning doing the newspapers. But, I made it! I was supposed to be the lunch helper at school today, so that's off. Cole was supposed to play at Evan's while I was at school, so that's off too and there was only a short meltdown about it. I stupidly called JoEllen back after she called last night. She needed someone to watch the boys for a while this afternoon, & I had told her no b/c I had to do the lunch thing @ school. Well, nice person that I am, I called her back and the boys are coming over here around lunch time today. I hope she's no going to be too long......... people forget that I get up at 1:30 am everyday and cannot survive without at least a little nap. My naps are not necessarily a luxury, but more of a necessity. If I don't lie down for a little while in the afternoons (like 30-40 minutes, at least), I am quite crabby by supper and barely make it to the kids' bedtime at 8.

Anyway, I just made the boys turn off the PlayStation for a while. We'll leave it off until Blake and Mitchell get here. I have a floor to mop and then I guess it can be another baking day. It might as well be, as we are not going anywhere. I need to get to Walmart, at least in Rensselaer, this evening or in the morning. Curtis' birthday is Wednesday and I need to get presents ready to send with Joe for Chris. Joe will be home tomorrow, for at least part of the day, as he needs to go to Traffic Court in Crown Point at some point. I'm quitting this post, because the more I type about my week, the busier and less normal it seems. Let's just get thru today trying to stay warm and not getting too cranky with each other.