Monday, September 26, 2005
September...
Well, I have been so slow updating the blog! It has been a very busy month or so. At the end of August we traveled to Texas for Aunt Pat’s funeral. It was so good to see so many from my side of the family…but, I still can’t quite process that we won’t ever hear Aunt Pat’s voice again in this life. I miss her.
While we were in Texas for the funeral, my niece Annika (who has had two previous liver transplants) began having internal bleeding. Annika’s little sister, Frankie, stayed with us for about a week while Anni was in the hospital. It hadn’t dawned on me what a difference there is between a three and a half year old and a not-yet-quite-two-year old until then! Frankie is such a joy, but I must admit that I had forgotten how much more work a toddler is than a three year old….how quickly we forget one stage as our children pass into the next! Kind of like our trip to Branson this past June….I had FORGOTTEN what our son was like on his first trip to Silver Dollar City until we returned with him a eight months later….WHAT A HUGE DIFFERENCE! I had a sudden flashback as we were riding Tom Sawyer’s Balloon Ride… We were only half-way through the ride when Doug began craning his neck around and pointing frantically to the Merry-Go-Round below. So intent was he upon making it known that he wanted to ride the Merry-Go-Round that he wasn’t even CONSCIOUS anymore of the ride we were ON. As I began to feel frustrated that he was so obsessed upon the ride he WASN’T on that he wasn’t even enjoying the ride he WAS on, I suddenly remembered what our first trip to SDC had been like. His attention span had been so fleeting that he was NEVER aware of where we were at the moment, only of where we WEREN’T! The moment we would arrive at one place, he would begin obsessing over the place he WANTED to be at instead, totally disinterested in the place that he had so shortly before been obsessing frantically over! He couldn’t even absorb the fun of the moment for worrying over what else might lie around the next corner. I had forgotten all about that until that moment HALF WAY THROUGH THE DAY, when a little bit of the old Doug resurfaced for a moment as we rode the Balloon Ride. Then I remembered. And only then did I marvel at the change in our son in just eight short months. Same thing with Frankie...having a little one in our home again for a while made me realize how much Rayna has changed in the past year and a half. (Frankie is AHEAD of where Rayna was at the same age in some areas, like verbal skills…but I had forgotten how much more supervision is needed for a littler one!)
Annika has made several trips to the hospital in Chicago since her hospitalization in Texas. Some of the vessels that were bleeding were ‘banded’ off. The rest have been chemically cauterized. In late October or early November she will have surgery to correct the underlying problem that precipitated the vessels rupture to begin with. If that surgery is successful, it will correct the blood flow problems in her liver. If it isn’t successful, she will need a third transplant. I know that most of you who read this blog have prayed for Annika through most of the almost five years of her life. She has been through so much for someone so young.
The day after we got back from Texas, Grant’s side of the family had a reunion. (Pictures posted previously!) And since then, we have been busy trying to help Dad Cochran here and there as he gets the place ready for ponies. Yes, PONIES! The kids are so excited they can’t think of hardly anything else!
Darcy has already decided the two ponies should be renamed, “Lightening” (previously Sparky) and “Thunder”(previously Shadow). Doug has renamed Shadow, “Batman Begins”. (No, he hasn’t seen the movie, but he can tell you which Batman fashion comes from which era….the Batman Begins era, the plain Batman era, or the Batman Beyond era!) Rayna has decided the light GELDING (Sparky) should be named “Belle”….what horse wouldn’t be happy to be known by such an elegant name? The fact that the horse is male is totally lost on her! The poor ponies will be called so many different things, they won’t know when to come and when not to!
Doug has moved beyond simply NAMING ‘his’ pony… Saturday as the band played at the Louisberg Cider Fest, Doug informed me that ‘his’ Batman Begins horsie was going to SLEEP in HIS BEDROOM with HIM. I told him horses were not allowed in the house. He thought this terribly narrow-minded of me and was certain that if he pressed the issue long enough, he could get me to take a more reasonable view of the matter! I tried to explain that ponies LIKE to sleep OUTSIDE. Doug wasn’t buying that line. He just envisioned his horse out in the elements miserable without him….and he looked at me as though shocked that his own mother could be so utterly heartless. It seemed a hopeless task for me to CONVINCE this child that it wasn’t a good idea for him to have ‘his’ pony in his little seven foot by ten foot room, until I finally just got graphic and pointed out to him that the pony would poop in the house and that it would stink the whole place up. THAT was a reasonable argument in his seven year old mind, so he is no longer badgering me to let his pony sleep with him in his room. (Of the three kids, HE keeps his room the neatest.)
¶ 9/26/2005 11:45:00 AM 
While we were in Texas for the funeral, my niece Annika (who has had two previous liver transplants) began having internal bleeding. Annika’s little sister, Frankie, stayed with us for about a week while Anni was in the hospital. It hadn’t dawned on me what a difference there is between a three and a half year old and a not-yet-quite-two-year old until then! Frankie is such a joy, but I must admit that I had forgotten how much more work a toddler is than a three year old….how quickly we forget one stage as our children pass into the next! Kind of like our trip to Branson this past June….I had FORGOTTEN what our son was like on his first trip to Silver Dollar City until we returned with him a eight months later….WHAT A HUGE DIFFERENCE! I had a sudden flashback as we were riding Tom Sawyer’s Balloon Ride… We were only half-way through the ride when Doug began craning his neck around and pointing frantically to the Merry-Go-Round below. So intent was he upon making it known that he wanted to ride the Merry-Go-Round that he wasn’t even CONSCIOUS anymore of the ride we were ON. As I began to feel frustrated that he was so obsessed upon the ride he WASN’T on that he wasn’t even enjoying the ride he WAS on, I suddenly remembered what our first trip to SDC had been like. His attention span had been so fleeting that he was NEVER aware of where we were at the moment, only of where we WEREN’T! The moment we would arrive at one place, he would begin obsessing over the place he WANTED to be at instead, totally disinterested in the place that he had so shortly before been obsessing frantically over! He couldn’t even absorb the fun of the moment for worrying over what else might lie around the next corner. I had forgotten all about that until that moment HALF WAY THROUGH THE DAY, when a little bit of the old Doug resurfaced for a moment as we rode the Balloon Ride. Then I remembered. And only then did I marvel at the change in our son in just eight short months. Same thing with Frankie...having a little one in our home again for a while made me realize how much Rayna has changed in the past year and a half. (Frankie is AHEAD of where Rayna was at the same age in some areas, like verbal skills…but I had forgotten how much more supervision is needed for a littler one!)
Annika has made several trips to the hospital in Chicago since her hospitalization in Texas. Some of the vessels that were bleeding were ‘banded’ off. The rest have been chemically cauterized. In late October or early November she will have surgery to correct the underlying problem that precipitated the vessels rupture to begin with. If that surgery is successful, it will correct the blood flow problems in her liver. If it isn’t successful, she will need a third transplant. I know that most of you who read this blog have prayed for Annika through most of the almost five years of her life. She has been through so much for someone so young.The day after we got back from Texas, Grant’s side of the family had a reunion. (Pictures posted previously!) And since then, we have been busy trying to help Dad Cochran here and there as he gets the place ready for ponies. Yes, PONIES! The kids are so excited they can’t think of hardly anything else!
Darcy has already decided the two ponies should be renamed, “Lightening” (previously Sparky) and “Thunder”(previously Shadow). Doug has renamed Shadow, “Batman Begins”. (No, he hasn’t seen the movie, but he can tell you which Batman fashion comes from which era….the Batman Begins era, the plain Batman era, or the Batman Beyond era!) Rayna has decided the light GELDING (Sparky) should be named “Belle”….what horse wouldn’t be happy to be known by such an elegant name? The fact that the horse is male is totally lost on her! The poor ponies will be called so many different things, they won’t know when to come and when not to!
Doug has moved beyond simply NAMING ‘his’ pony… Saturday as the band played at the Louisberg Cider Fest, Doug informed me that ‘his’ Batman Begins horsie was going to SLEEP in HIS BEDROOM with HIM. I told him horses were not allowed in the house. He thought this terribly narrow-minded of me and was certain that if he pressed the issue long enough, he could get me to take a more reasonable view of the matter! I tried to explain that ponies LIKE to sleep OUTSIDE. Doug wasn’t buying that line. He just envisioned his horse out in the elements miserable without him….and he looked at me as though shocked that his own mother could be so utterly heartless. It seemed a hopeless task for me to CONVINCE this child that it wasn’t a good idea for him to have ‘his’ pony in his little seven foot by ten foot room, until I finally just got graphic and pointed out to him that the pony would poop in the house and that it would stink the whole place up. THAT was a reasonable argument in his seven year old mind, so he is no longer badgering me to let his pony sleep with him in his room. (Of the three kids, HE keeps his room the neatest.)
¶ 9/26/2005 11:45:00 AM
