Ellie. 12.

It seems that for several years in a row, poor Ellie has had her birthday disrupted by someone from our family missing on her special day. Two years ago she and Mike were in California for her birthday (American Idol Finale), and last year Megan was gone somewhere (?). This year, Mike and the little boys were in Yellowstone National Park, and Luke went to a camp-out.

But Ellie still had a happy birthday and loved extending the celebration into Sunday when the boys returned home.

I loved Ellie's confidence to wear both birthday glasses and a birthday shirt to school. Had hats been allowed, I've no doubt she would have worn that too.

We're definitely related.

                                   

We all got a little burned out from Ellie's favorite birthday present. A karaoke machine that connects to an ipad and gives you pretty much any song you could possibly want. I couldn't help but send a video of Ellie and her friend singing away to my childhood friend, Karen. What we would have given to have had this at that age. (We used the old school blank tapes to record ourselves singing.)

Twelve years old is a milestone in the LDS church. It is time to leave Primary and join the Young Women's program.

Wow!

Ellie is TWELVE. 

God's Hand. Ellie's Heart.

I’ve hesitated whether to write anything publicly about experiences around here of late. We’ve written plenty in private emails, text exchanges and journal entries, and thought that would be the extent of it. As I laid my head on my pillow last night, it took a surprising effort to fall asleep despite feeling utterly exhausted from a long day. The events of the last month kept playing themselves out in my mind, and after falling to my knees in humble prayer of thanksgiving and gratitude, sleep did come. With it, came the thought that I should be more open about sharing our experiences with others. It is part of our faith, our belief and our testimony--that God is not only in the details of our lives, but He is a God of miracles, and they do still exist in our world today. We have experienced them. Therefore, we will share an abridged version of our experience, in our small way of testifying of God's goodness, mercy and love.

I wrote about Ellie's mystery finger injury a few weeks back. We never did find out a reason for it being broken in two places, but that enigmatic finger turned out to be the start of a series of miracles in Ellie's life. 

I'm going to write the series of events briefly. We know what we view as miracles, I don't need to identify them specifically.

At Ellie's appointment for her finger, the receptionist told me Ellie was due for a well-check up and that I should schedule one. I had planned for her to get one around her upcoming 12th birthday in May to coincide with her getting the required junior high shots. But instead, for whatever reason, I made an appointment for the next week.

A week later at that visit, Ellie's pediatrician spent extra time listening to Ellie's heart. Thinking she heard something abnormal, she had 2 other doctors come in and listen. I stood there as both of the other doctors said everything sounded within the normal range. Our doctor listened again and had the others listen to HER stethoscope, but they still thought everything sounded normal.  Regardless of her co-workers opinions, our pediatrician told me she felt as though Ellie needed to be referred to a pediatric cardiologist at Primary Children's Medical Center.

I was able to get an appointment AT PRIMARY CHILDREN'S MEDICAL CENTER FOUR days later.

The pediatric cardiologist found everything normal that she could HEAR, but routinely did an EKG in which they found a problem within the "electrical system of the heart." The pediatric cardiologist herself, recognized the "powers that be" causing our pediatrician to refer us for something that is impossible to hear. Due to the results of the EKG, she referred us to an electrophysiologist. Knowing Ellie was in the middle of cheer competition season and typically very active (cast was due off the next week and we were planning to go to Portland for a competition), and knowing high exertion could be risky, the cardiologist went up to the front desk and made an appointment with us for the soonest we could be seen. We were to return one week later.

A few days after Ellie's initial cardiologist appointment, I returned to our pediatrician for an unrelated issue with another child. I gave her a brief update on Ellie. After her initial shock that Ellie had already been seen by the cardiologist, she looked me in the eyes and said, "Someone wanted me to hear something that day."

When checking in the next week with the electrophysiologist, I overheard the receptionists talking surprisingly about our appointment. We came to find out a few minutes later, that the doctor actually wasn't "in clinic" that day, but had set up our appointment amidst a conference call and interviews upstairs.

In layman terms, the doctor informed us that Ellie had an abnormality within the functioning of her heart. Unbeknownst to us, she was born with the abnormality, but she never had any symptoms....yet. Due to the lack of symptoms, if she were to continue in physically exerting gymnastics/cheer, it is quite likely we would have never known anything was wrong with her heart until it was quite possibly too late and she could go into cardiac arrest. That could have been 2 weeks or 5 years from now.

Ellie was told she needed to have a procedure done on her heart, and that until it was done, she would be unable to participate in any physically exerting activities (way more devastating to her than the words "at risk of sudden death" that the doctor kept throwing around the conversation). Abruptly stepping down from her competition cheer team smack dab in the middle of competitions was not an easy task for a constant cartwheel flipping and back-hand springing 11 year old girl to do.

Yesterday, March 14th, Ellie underwent a 4 hour procedure on her heart. It was a long 4 hours, but despite me feeling fidgety, Mike and I never felt anxious or worried while waiting for news of the procedure progress. As text after text came through my phone throughout the day, I felt the love, concern, faith and prayers of so many people close to us. 

The procedure went very well. The doctor said it was only a matter of time until the symptoms of her condition would have appeared. It is now 98% likely it is completely fixed, though they'll know with certainty in 2 months

Here we are a day later. Ellie is doing great! She is sore at the sites the three catheters entered into her body, but after a lazy, restful day today, she will be almost completely back to real life tomorrow. 

Today, I gifted Ellie three bracelets I purchased at the hospital gift shop yesterday. I told her, I picked out each one for a specific reason and I want them to always be a tangible reminder of three things. 1. The heart is self-explanatory-but to always remember the story associated with that heart of hers beating inside her body. 2. The "love you" one-is to remember all the people that have given her gifts, sent texts, served us, etc. I hope she always remembers how many people love and care for her. 3. The angel bracelet is to remind her that Heavenly Father uses people here on earth to accomplish His works. There is no end to the angels both seen and unseen that play a part in our lives. (We think our pediatrician is one of them.)

  

We have no explanation for why some youth meet a sudden death on a gym floor or a sports field, and why Ellie was likely spared that ending. We acknowledge the Lord's hand in Ellie's life. We feel humbled and very blessed that we have been the benefactors of true, modern-day miracles.

We believe God lives. We believe He loves us, and we believe that He is involved in the details of our lives. 

Ellie's Mystery Injury

Mike had to recently highlight/introduce Ellie somewhere, and one of the comments he made was when he thinks of Ellie, he pictures her feet more than her face. Ellie is constantly back flipping or cartwheeling through the house, yard, etc. that it is far more common to see her feet and legs than her face.

Ellie has always loved gymnastics, and almost a year ago, she really wanted to try out for a competition cheer team. Mike and I really weren't excited about her pursuing this, but seeing Ellie's enthusiasm and desire, and wanting Ellie to explore something she loved, Mike and I acquiesced. Before we knew it Ellie was spending a fair amount of time (and our $$) at a local gym.

December began the official "cheer competition season" and after months of practicing, they began to perform. Ellie participated in a competition in December, and one in January. The schedule included three in February (including one in Oregon), and one in March to finish up the season.

Two weeks ago, Ellie spent Monday and Tuesday laying on the couch sick with the stomach flu. On the  Tuesday night Ellie complained that her middle finger was swollen and bruised. Knowing she had done nothing but spend the last couple days doing nothing, we didn't think too much of it. The next morning the bruising had spread to her two fingers either side. Mike and I assumed if it was a burst blood vessel or something similar. That evening, Ellie as at her friend's house next-door and our neighbor (an x-ray tech) said Ellie really should get it looked at. Mike echoed the suggestion to me later that night, and despite the fact I was hoping for a day to myself after finally getting everyone well and back to school, I decided to make an appointment to get the unexplained swelling and bruising looked at.

To make a long story short, we were told it wasn't broken and sent home on our way. After first the doctor bringing in 3 other doctors to look at the weird bruising with no trauma story or broken bone. We were told to return if the bruising got worse.

An hour later, while lunching with Mike, I received a phone call that it was indeed broken (resident versus doctor reading the x-ray), and that she needed to see a specialist the next day as it was on/near the growth plate at the base of her middle finger.

A visit to the specialist told us Ellie's finger is broken across the base of her middle finger, and broken in a second place to the lower right. He also told us she has a high threshold for pain, as she hardly even winced as the doctor squeezed, moved and wiggled her finger. (This is the child that the only way I knew she had repeated ear infections as a baby was because of a fever-no crying-yet CRIES with all the energy she can muster if she gets a paper cut or an (un)intentional blow from a sibling.)

Ellie's tears may not have fallen because of any pain, but my heart broke when Ellie burst into tears upon the doctor's announcement she would need a cast. 

I wanted to get a photo of her new cast the day it was put on, but I didn't have the heart to capture Ellie's tear-stained face. It isn't really a "badge of honor" around here, it's a reminder of a painful time for Ellie. And the pain, has nothing to do with any broken bones. She has put soooo much time into this cheer team gearing up for this competition season, so not being able to participate in the fruit of her labors hasn't been very easy for her.

Saturday was a sad day around here...it was a competition day, and Ellie was replaced on her team for it. We have one more competition to skip, and hopefully, though she can't cross her fingers, we are hoping to go to Portland, OR on the 26th. The cast will come off the day before, but the doctor unfortunately has no faith that Ellie will dictate her own healing/return to activity based on what may or may not be painful--because she didn't feel any pain to begin with.

One week down, three to go.

On the bright side, she is perfecting her one handed cartwheels.

My Hands, My Children, My Job

*I'm setting a mark for myself to blog on here at least once a week. So many happenings are going unrecorded, and though I'm doing it entirely for myself, I know there are a couple of readers still out there that miss me. So let's see how this goes.*

During late December, my hands finally succumbed to the cracking and dryness that often happens during the winter months. My right thumb had a significant, painful crack on it and no matter how much lotion/ointment I applied, it wouldn't heal. I dealt with it for a few days, and was hopeful that a week in the Caribbean humidity would cure it. That Caribbean humidity worked a miracle on my skin, although a havoc on my hair. (It's rare I can empathize with my mother-in-law about hair issues.) My thumb healed perfectly, and my hands spent a glorious 8 days rarely needing lotion.

Despite going on our cruise earlier than usual this year, I returned home optimistic that the softness of my skin would last throughout the rest of the cold, dry weeks of winter we have yet to endure, as it has the past couple of years post-cruise.

My visions of smooth skin for the rest of the winter didn't take into account the fact I'd be washing my hands 4,073 times for a couple of days last week, and now this week.

You see.
We have a new identity (hobby?) around here.

The Sowby Family is perhaps now better known as Public Vomiters.

Meet Joshua, third grader that spewed his breakfast, including a red berry smoothie (TMI?) across his third grade classroom last week.

And this is Drew. 1st Grader who five days after big brother's debut, decided to match him by throwing up on the school bus yesterday afternoon.

And this is Ellie. 6th grader who I kept home thinking she had a mild case of I'm-sort-of-sick-but-really-I-just-want-a-day-home-from-school. But the fact a few hours later, a bathroom rug was thrown away instead of washed, confirmed my earlier ambivalent feelings of keeping her home had in fact been the right choice.

Despite Ellie being home sick yesterday (her throwing up didn't start until after lunchtime), I decided to do Cookie Day. Every so often, I greet the children at the bus stop with a container of cookies, and I hear reports of children spying me from a few houses down as the bus approaches with chants and cheers of, "Cookie Day! Cookie Day!" I love the enthusiasm and cheers that greet me as I stand there with my blue lid container full of cookies.

Except yesterday, as I stood by while the bus doors opened, intermixed with chants of "Yay! It's Cookie Day!" and "Cookie Day! Cookie Day!" were more loud and overpowering voices yelling, "Drew threw up on the bus!" and "Drew just barfed!"

Rarely am I at the bus stop to greet my children, but the bus driver knew I was Drew's mother, so I didn't really  have an escape. I wanted to stand there passing out cookies like normal, or even run home to help Drew, but more accurately, I daydreamed for just a moment of running home, hopping in my car and escaping to a hotel for an undetermined amount of time.

I didn't.

Instead, I passed the cookies to a neighbor boy to give out, and turned to the bus driver (who had just retrieved the emergency 'Body Fluid Cleanup Kit') and I said, "I am so sorry." And then quite insincerely added, "Can I help you clean it up?"

(For the record, I asked GENUINELY at the elementary school if I could help clean up Joshua's and they told me, "Oh, the janitor's got it taken care of.")

A part of me thought the bus driver would say, "Oh no. It's part of the job, go home and take care of your child." or even, "Oh, it's no big deal. Keep passing out cookies." Instead, I somewhat stumbled into the bus as he said, "Yes. I think I will let you."

I have cleaned up a lot of throw up in my life. I'll spare you the details of some of the worst (my BFF's teenage brother throughout his whole bedroom, mere weeks after their mother died is likely still at the top), but the floor of a school bus, mixed with my child's lunch remnants come in as a close second.

Wondering how my soft hands relate to all this?

Ellie and Drew threw up more times yesterday afternoon and evening than I can count. I washed my hands more times yesterday than I have in my entire life combined.

By yesterday evening, I could feel the annual crack on the side of my thumb beginning to make a second appearance of the season.

So last night, when a child started spewing in their bucket as they walked to the bathroom, and Mike continued eating his dinner, I said, "That's fine, I'll help AGAIN. But don't be surprised when I HAVE to go alone to the Caribbean next week for medical reasons."

I'm a nice, compassionate, serving mother and wife like that.

Washington DC with Ellie

I think I've explained before why Mike and I have sort of decided against full-family-all-seven-of-us-together-at-one-time type trips. We can barely drive to the local ice cream place 10 minutes away without somebody crying, fighting, or almost dying. (No idea why I still have some sort of crrazzzzzyyyy idea that we will all go TOGETHER to England a year from now.)

This year was going to be low-key for trips as we save our air miles for England next year, plus Megan is going to Peru in July. But I couldn't wait any longer to get back to Washington DC to visit my darling niece and nephew, Lucy and Peter. I had planned to take Ellie at some point during her 5th grade year (typically 5th graders study a fair amount of US history, but not so much for Ellie??), but for one reason or another, it happened right as school let out instead.

Oh how I love Washington DC. I owe my love for that city to my in-laws for first introducing me to it in 2011. I owe the ability to make this trip so fun to my brother and his wife who live just outside of DC. And of course, I owe it to Mike for allowing me the opportunity to go.

Oh boy. I love that place! Next time--I'm heading there alone with Mike. There are soooo many things I wanted to spend more time doing/seeing/experiencing. But Ellie's attention span wasn't the greatest. Joshua and Drew will have to wait a few more years to be old enough to appreciate the rich history of the place, but I know I won't be able to wait until then to visit again.

Because of these two.

Aren't they the CUTEST?????

I'm so glad I had Ellie write in a journal each night about her days in DC. I'll let those entries go along with the photos...

"Today is Sunday. A few things that I saw were the White House. The Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and many more. My favorite place was the Lincoln Memorial and the White House. At the White House there were a lot of police. My third favorite place is the Jefferson Memorial. I could see the Washington Monument from a distance."

"My mom's favorite is Fort McHenry which is actually in Baltimore, Maryland. I liked it too. The only thing I didn't like was the drive. Fort McHenry is the birthplace of the Star Spangled Banner. It was super cool!"

"Another place that I went to was Georgetown Cupcakes. It was delicious."

"I saw lots of cool things today. I saw the Washington Monument up close."

"The National Archives, the Natural History Museum, the American History Museum. THe American History was really cool. (Later in the evening) we went to the Air and Space museum. It was cool to see all of the things there. It had the fastest airplane and the space shuttle that actually went to space and back. I was picturing it to be pretty ginormous. It was actually bigger than I thought it would be."

"Today I went to Arlington Semetery (sic). It is cool. There is a grave of an unknown soldier, so another soldier was guarding it. All day, all night, rain, snow, sleet or hail. Crazy!"

 "We also took the metro to the Library of Congress. I really like Washington DC. We went to the World War II Memorial."

" I even touched the Washington Monument. It has two types of stone."

Interruption from Mom: Gymnastics made the sight-seeing a little more bearable when attention spans started to wane.

"Today is my last day in Washington DC. Today I went to Manassas. It is where the Civil War started. It is a really cool place. "

Another interruption from Mom: Not sure how or why a large basket of 3D glasses have a place in an old historic home at an old battlefield.

 "Washington DC is a really cool place to be.
I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!"

And there you have it.
From the 11 year old herself.

Permanent Records

From a fairly young age I have loved writing in a journal. I wrote my first journal entry when I was 4 years old in my green hardback journal. I wrote on and off for years growing up, and then when I was about 13, I wrote faithfully daily up until the day I got married. It's been spotty for the past 18 years, but lately, I've been rededicated to writing regularly in my personal journal. (There's just soooo much I don't want to forget about life in all of its ups and downs.)

Every so often I do my best to get my children to follow suit and write regularly in journals too. Ellie is the only one that does it on her own, and I LOVE IT!! Luke is asked to do it every so often, and it is probably one of his least favorite things to do. But like I told him a couple of weeks ago, when there was apparently "nothing to write about." "Just write about ANYTHING!You'll be happy you have recorded the daily stuff of your life."

He must have got the idea, because he proceeded to write about an incident that will likely be fun (for some?) to remember one day. Luke gave a brief synopsis of the event (he is required to do at least 6-8 sentences!), but instead of taking a photo of his version (privacy?), I'll share briefly my own version of it.

On a pleasant Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, Joshua walked into the house from playing in the backyard wearing only his underwear. Of course I was immediately alerted to something being wrong and I asked him what in the world he was doing, and WHERE. WERE. HIS. CLOTHES?!?

As I looked at the family room window to the trampoline, and listened to Joshua's version of the incident, it all fell into place. Luke, Joshua, Drew and a couple of neighbor boys were jumping on the trampoline, when Luke thought it would be funny to chain Joshua to the side of the trampoline and see if he could get himself free. Which Joshua was able to do...but he had to leave his clothes chained to the trampoline in order to gain freedom.

I didn't laugh (at the time). I went outside, yelled at Luke, sent the neighbor boys home, and instructed Joshua to go back and retrieve his clothes. Luke's defense was, he wouldn't have done it to anyone but his own brothers. Mike laid on the couch throughout the whole incident trying not to laugh.

Someone asked me the other day, why I don't write blog posts as much anymore. She complimented me on being funny and writing well in the past, and asked why I stopped. I didn't really have an answer, except to say, that maybe as my children get older, they do less funny things, or more accurately, they do things that are sorta funny/sorta questionable. Such as chaining a brother up to a trampoline and him having to strip down to his undies to get free. Perhaps good judgement would say to keep it in the personal journals only. But here we are. (Which really, now that I think about it...sharing the yellow snow incident a few years ago was questionable too.)

(Joshua drew a picture of the trampoline experience in his journal later that evening to go along with the above entry.)

It just so happened Drew chose the exact same thing to write and draw about that Sunday evening too.

And now I have a whole blog post about an incident I had no intention of recording. I was going to write about journals and how much I love Ellie's journals that she always invites me to read. (I'll give her privacy and won't take a photo of them.) I love how much she writes about herself. Love it! She'll surely treasure those written monologues one day.

Megan on the other hand, has discovered a new way to record her life.
Oh boy.
Megan's biggest fan is herself, and her newest hobby is perfect for her.
Vlogging.
She can talk all she wants to a camera and nobody has to interrupt her to get a word in, or tell her to stop talking.
And she gets to edit the hours of her chatter to her greatest priority. It's quite a good hobby for a self-proclaimed narcissist. (insert winky face)

You can watch her introductory vlog here. (And if you really love it...there's more on YouTube!)

Now. Go record something permanent yourself!
You won't regret it.

Birthday to Remember

I believe every birthday should be a birthday to remember, but I think there is something about Ellie's 10th birthday (today!) that she will remember always.

About a week ago, Ellie came to me with a notebook page, color co-ordinated and decorated in a very typical almost-10-year-old-girl way, with the events of her birthday spelled out. She had shopping, dinner at Village Inn, and cake and ice cream all time mapped out for her Tuesday afternoon/evening birthday celebration.

Last Friday morning, Mike called me. He had just gotten off the phone with my brother Casey, and as soon as he told me that, I knew the combination of him talking to Casey, and the timing of the American Idol season that it probably meant one thing. (Remember last year?)

Casey had "tickets" to the American Idol final singing competition, Casey no longer lives in California, but that didn't stop Mike from ever pausing to question whether or not he was going to go. (Last year Mike and Casey attended the actual finale.) As soon as Mike looked at the date and saw the tickets were for May 20th, he declared Ellie his travel partner. Yours truly had to drop all of her Friday morning plans and errands for the sake of finding flights for them. Mike invited his cousin and her daughter to attend with them. (It was going to be dads and daughters, but Mike's cousin's husband couldn't attend, so he went with his cousin instead! Fun-wish I had a photo of all 4 of them.)

I LOVE that Mike flying to LA, now 2 years in a row, with just days notice is so NOT him, but so him. I love that Mike is frugal, a workaholic, and organized and well-planned, yet he has now followed a particular passion of his twice and temporarily thrown all those traits of his out the window. Enough about Mike, it is Ellie's birthday.

Mike told Ellie on Friday night that she was going to go to American Idol with him. She was very excited, but a part of her wondered/questioned/worried about "missing" her birthday.

Even Luke mentioned a couple of days ago, "I love birthdays, even other peoples. I'm sad we won't have balloons, and presents and cake." And today, Drew mentioned, "Is it really Ellie's birthday? I don't like it."

Mike and Ellie flew to LA on Monday night, and will return early on Wednesday morning. I have to say, it has been a very strange day today. I LOVE birthdays, and it has been odd to not see my child on their birthday. But on the flip side, receiving these photos throughout the day, have made me smile.

(Waiting in line with Cousin Katie to claim their tickets on Tuesday morning.)

(Cousin Karena took the girls to Starbucks to get a snack while Mike held the place in line. Apparently, Ellie got a free hot chocolate and a cake pop!)

(I wish I had a photo of Ellie holding up her sign. We could see her blue sign being held up right after Jena's performance! So cool. Side note to remember: On Sunday night when Ellie was making her sign, on one part of her poster she wrote, #americanidol. Mike came into the room and asked, "Why have you written number American Idol?" He got all sorts of negative feedback from the three oldest children, "It's a hash tag Dad, haven't you noticed that on all the American Idol shows you've been watching this season?" #mikesisnotintosocialmedia)

We can do a pretend birthday tomorrow, but I think today will remain the highlight! At least we think...Ellie isn't one to show a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. 

Happy 10th Birthday Ellie!