Walnuts on My Windshield

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Today is Katie's 15th birthday. I must confess that I can remember many details about May 21, 1990. The 3:00 AM water break, the 5:00 AM call to the doctor, the mad dash to the hospital, the rude and painful exam by two rude and painful nurses, their insistence that my water had not broken. The endless walking of that LONG hall at Baptist Medical Center from 6:00 AM till 7:00 AM, singing to myself, "Thou, O Lord, Art a Shield About Me." The return to the now-ticked-off nurses for another rude and painful exam and their insistence that my water had not broken. Their call to the doctor and his instruction that I must go home, eat nothing, and walk. He would see me in his office that afternoon.

We went home. We walked. We walked all over our neighborhood. We walked all over our neighborhood again. We walked all over our neighborhood many times. We both became fairly sick of walking. When we could stand it no longer, we went to the doctor's office. We waited. We waited a while longer. Another glorious nurse exam. The doctor came in. Yet another exam. The doctor became agitated. Why was I not at the hospital? Didn't I know how dangerous it was to wait so long after my water had broken? Didn't I realize the risk of infection? Didn't I know I was supposed to call the doctor as SOON as my water broke? I must now rush to the hospital. No! I was not allowed to go home. No! He didn't care that I had no suitcase with me. No! My husband would have to go get my stuff. I must go straight to the hospital where he would meet me to augment my puny labor with Pitocin, detested dripping drug of pregnant women everywhere.

We went home anyway, retrieved all our stuff, got to the hospital, started the IV Pitocin, hated it, endured innumerable exams, learned that the Pitocin wasn't doing anything (besides causing a great deal of pain), and were told it had to be turned off because the doctor was not on the premises. We waited for the doctor. He arrived at 5:30 PM. He wanted to do a C-section. We wanted to wait. He had a dinner engagement. He would do a C-section. Because we had waited so long after my water broke to seek medical care, we had no choice.

The epidural was no fun. Scott sat and prayed. I succeeded in not puking. At about 6:30 PM, the baby was born. I asked who it was and Scott said, through tears, "It's KATIE!" What joy!!!

Now Katie is fifteen and she is still a joy!

Scott went to China last month and was gone three weeks. In those three weeks, many things went wrong. The TV antenna ceased to function, rendering us TV-less. The van needed work. Andrew's reading lamp broke. Katie lost the History Day competition. The riding mower wouldn't work. My newly planted garden all died. McAfee Virus Scan expired. The riding mower's battery died. However, worse than all that was the trench.

One day, while she was mowing out back and I was inside doing laundry, Jessica came running in to ask if water was supposed to be shooting out of a pipe behind the kitchen. Well, actually no. It was going great guns, a la sprinkler. I called our plumber who said that A) it was better to have such a leak outdoors than indoors, and B) it meant that the graywater line problem could no longer be ignored. We would have to dig up the old metal line from the house until we hit plastic pipe. Once the entire metal pipe was uncovered, he could come out to replace it and re-plumb the kitchen and laundry room with larger diameter pipe. This would fix all out out-going water problems, hallelujah!

Such things rarely happen when Scott is home. The kids and I set to with one shovel and three hand trowels. After a couple hours hard labor, we had uncovered about ten feet of pipe. I sent Jessica to a neighbor's house to try to borrow an additional shovel and/or pick. She returned with both, borrowed from our neighbor, Bill. Better tools made the work easier, and we kept plugging away. It was becoming more difficult, however, because the pipe kept getting deeper. Duh. Water does travel downhill. The trench that was only four inches deep at the house was now over a foot deep, and clearing all the dirt away from the top and sides of the pipe required us to go wider, as well as deeper.

Bill and his son Phillip showed up with additional shovels and tools of various kinds. Bill said that when he heard I was digging a trench, he decided he had to come watch; (maybe he intended to sell tickets?) and, if he were going to watch, he might as well help. What a blessing! Later, his wife, LaShell, came, and we all (Bill, LaShell, Phillip, Katie, Jessica, Josiah, and I) worked for several more hours to finish the job. It was a trench to be proud of: 40 feet long, almost two feet wide, and up to two-and-a half feet deep. Maybe somebody can calculate the total weight of bottomland clay we removed from that trench!

The plumber arrived a couple days later and did his thing, but the real problem turns out to be farther down the line, in the leaching part of the pipe. So. . . the lovely new larger diameter PVC pipe means we can do laundry in well-timed shifts, and the water backs up into the kitchen sink, rather than spraying out the back of the house. Someday, we will have to address that problem, but this is not that day! I will add that I was VERY proud of our kids' attitude and hard work. They did an excellent job without complaining, so Team Roberts won, despite Dad's absence.

And now, a little news on each family member.

This Wednesday, Katie volunteered at the church. That gave me a day of grace on her Biology. She has done a General Science course on her own, but when she started Biology, she said it would really help if I would lecture her on the chapter before she read it. That has worked well so far, except, of course, it means that I need to read the chapter in advance and understand it well enough to explain it. Tuesday night I finished reading the chapter on genetics and presented that lecture on Thursday. I am learning an awful lot along with the kids. However, I'm not sure I really want to do all this upper math and science four times!

Katie's also doing really well with geometry, usually scoring around 95%. She dislikes it, but not as much as science, which she loathes in all its various forms. We have told her that she has to do General Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, and then she can be done with it. On the math, we want her to do Trig and probably Calculus, so that will be fun, I'm sure. = )

She really wants more academics, so we are looking at purchasing a curriculum for literature and maybe government. We are looking at Tapestry of Grace and maybe Sonlight, but I haven't quite decided what to do. We already have a lot of the books for the Sonlight American Lit course, but they are old, so the page numbers won't line up with the Instructor's Guide. I'm still mulling that over.

Jessica is doing very well overall, but she is not enjoying Algebra in a big way. Actually, she hates math in general and Algebra in particular. She is making good progress on her Chinese language study and also keeping up well with all her other subjects.

Jessica's piano is coming along nicely, and she LOVES her AIM (mime ministry). She is also very excited about the possibility of returning to China later this summer. She has been very helpful with Andrew lately, keeping him going on chores and occupying him when I have to be gone. She is working once or twice a month in the 2s/3s class at church and, in general, living for the times when she can hang out with her friends. We have dinner with a family tonight that has a 13 year -old girl she really likes, so that will help.

Josiah is pretty stable these days. He's coming along well in most of his academics, with handwriting now legible, spelling improving, and addition and subtraction pretty well conquered. Unlike his sisters, he LIVES for science, and so I am forever scouring our several libraries, trying to find him books he hasn't read yet.

He has also been working very diligently on Cub Scout academic achievements. These are extra things beyond the regular 20 achivements that he is supposed to accomplish in the 18-24 months with his Webelos patrol. Josiah actually hates Cub Scouts. He does not like any of the boys in his patrol, and in fact, after a year with them, still does not know most of their names! He doesn't like the things that Cub Scouts do, and he finds the monthly pack meetings terribly boring (so do I). However, once I found these academic achievements, he seems to have hit his stride. Each achievement has an average of eight requirements. So, we do at least one Cub activity every day, and he is really racking up the awards. At the pack meeting last night, while most of the guys got two or three things, he got eight! He walked back to me beaming and said that that was kind of neat. He doesn't care much for doing the work, but when it pays off, he's really glad.

Josiah has also joined the AIM (mime) group, at least for the summer session. I think it is something that he will be very good at. He has been watching and imitating Jessica for some time, and he likes things like this where he doesn't have to talk in public! One concern I have is that the group is really big on evaluating everything. The kids and leaders give each other feedback. If what he does is criticized (even constructively), I am concerned that he might melt down. They are really big on excellence. It's hard for me to leave him for several hours with no one knowing his challenges. So far, so good. I am sure that if he can get through that kind of thing, he will do fine.

Andrew is a never-ending bundle of strong will. My biggest challenge is organizing my time and disciplining myself to spend time with him one-on-one. He is still in pull-ups at night and they are thoroughly soaked every morning. He still sucks his thumb all day, despite all efforts to the contrary. He is still VERY physically affectionate, which is nice, but which gets old. There are actually times when I do not want a child hanging on me, and that is hard for him to understand and accept.

He has become a bit more diligent with his chores (especially when I watch him like a hawk!) and he is having lots of fun outdoors, with the sandbox, trampoline, and his bike. A few days ago, he went swimming and did a flip off Big Rock into the water! I wasn't there, but Katie said he did it four times!!! He is able to swim on his own without floaties - not an actual stroke, but he can at least get where he's going. That was a big deal. He actually learned to swim a couple years ago, but seemed to regress last year. He insisted he had to have the floaties. This year seems to be his breakthrough.

He is also very excited about his birthday coming up. Don't tell him, but we are planning a little party at some restaurant in Springfield before church next Wednesday. Then we also hope to take cupcakes to his class. The girls have prepared some neat gifts for him. Now Scott and I just need to decide what gift we will give. Scott wants it to be something to be used outdoors. I think we need to get moving! It's only a week away, but Scott says that's plenty of time. = )

Scott is healthy and very busy. He is on a new project at work (ANPAC) and it looks like it could be rather stressful. He is the design lead, but evidently some of the people he's supposed to be leading don't really want to be led - at least not by him. It also looks like it will be harder to do this particular project remote - working from home 2 days a week - but Scott is pretty determined to make that work out. As you know, when Scott is determined, he can usually make things happen.

He is also very busy with China stuff. He's talking to China most every day and trying to provide the leadership that is needed from a distance. Today he is doing a presentation about his recent trip to a group of ANPAC folks at lunch, and then he will be speaking for a few minutes tonight at church after the Wednesday night Bible study. He has a slide show put together (I think) and will be talking about stuff that happened and sharing some testimonies.

I am getting my life back together - an on-going process, as you know. I had lost 30 pounds and gained 10, so now I am trying to work my way back down. It is VERY hard to do, unless I do Atkins, and I have just not convinced myself that I am willing to do that again. My doc wants me to do Atkins plus fruit, which I think I can do, but I have to decide that I want to! I am still walking my two miles most mornings.

My garden has been planted for the third time (frost killed it twice) and it looks like we may eventually have peppers and tomatoes. It also appears that there is a rabbit family living near the garden! We have repeatedly seen a couple of the cutest, tiniest bunnies you can imagine, right behind the camper, which is only six feet from the garden. Maybe they don't like tomatoes.

Josiah and I made a little flower bed around the mailboxes out front and planted a bunch of seeds: morning glories, daisies, four-o-clocks, and marigolds. They are up, just about an inch high, and I have been weeding and watering. Our spring has been so cool that everything is slow this year. I am hoping that soon we'll have lots of color out there.

We are planning a cookout for our cell group and some others on Sunday, May 29. We are expecting about 25 folks, I guess, and it will be a fun time. It does motivate me to get the place cleaned up, though, which is probably a good thing.

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A week later. . .

Much has happened in the past week, and since I never got the above ready to post on the date indicated, I will add these updates.

The rabbits do like tomatoes. They also like peppers. I have cried about my garden, but I will cry no more. We will either have to figure out an economical way to rabbit-proof it, or plow it under so I don't have to look at it and be depressed.

In other animal news. . . last Tuesday, in several locations, both at home and away, Josiah and I saw:

Katie had a pleasant birthday. Scott took her to a Springfield Cardinals ball game, which they lost to the Arkansas Travelers in extra innings. Katie received several cash gifts, and with them plus a mere $40 of her own money, was able to purchase a very nice flat screen monitor. She likes her monitor!

Katie also learned this week that the essay she had written for a high school contest on "Why Free News Media are Important" not only won first place in the Southwest Missouri district of the Society of Professional Journalists; it was sent on to the national competition and there won third place!!! We are all very proud and happy. As a third place winner, she will be receiving a $300 scholarship check! There is an article about this in the Joplin Independent (online newspaper) at http://www.joplinindependent.com/display_article.php/d-burton1116027574, and it looks like the Christian County Headliner (local weekly newspaper) will also run an article about her. Go, Katie!

Andrew had his sixth birthday in a big way. Thursday, May 26 was the day, but he partied for three days straight. Wednesday night he and several friends from church had a before-church party at Burger King in Springfield, where there is a nice big play place. They all had fun, and he received some really neat gifts.

A few minutes later, we took cupcakes to his Wednesday night class where they all sang Happy Birthday to him and treated him like a king.

Thursday night, we had our family party. Andrew picked the dinner menu and then helped me make it: meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans. For dessert, we had Batchelators and vanilla ice cream with sprinkles on top. He opened more presents from the family and had a good time.

Friday, he was invited to spend the day with Mr. Tom and Ms. Connie. They are his third set of grandparents. = ) They used to live in their motor home in the little trailer park next door and they like Andrew almost as much as he likes them. They now live in Branson, so I took him to their new trailer park at 10:00 in the morning and they kept him ALL DAY, bringing him home after supper, on their way to church. What a time he had! They had prepared balloons, a delicious chocolate cake, and some precious gifts, not to mention lunch and supper. I had taken his bike and the trailer park has a swimming pool, so he had yet another grand birthday.

Now we are trying to get him back down to the real world - you know, normal things like taking out trash, folding laundry, and obeying right away. Six is going to be a great year for Andrew, and for Team Roberts.

Until next time,
Patty

From My Book Pile:

Nothing to Make a Shadow by Faye Cashatt Lewis, rank 6. The author's family moved when she was a young girl to rural South Dakota. It was VERY rural! This book is her reminiscences of growing up there in the early 1900s - a true primary source.

The Wright Sister by Richard Maurer, rank 5. A biography of Katharine Wright, Wilbur and Orville's sister. This was written for young people, and I guess I was just too old to get into it. They had a pretty weird (dysfunctional) family.

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain, rank 9. I listened to this and simply enjoyed it. Reading Mark Twain (or hearing Mark Twain read) is somehow comforting and familiar; like coming home.

Fifty Acres and a Poodle by Jean Marie Laskas, rank 8. This is one funny writer, and she writes just like she thinks. It's a true story about her and her fiance's decision to purchase a farm, along with all the funny and frustrating things that accompany rural life.

Bryson City Tales by Walt Larimore, M.D., rank 10. It is so rare to find a well-written book by an author who is a Christian and who also has something interesting to say. I love to read most things medical, and I particularly enjoy books about life in the sticks. This book chronicles a young doctor's first year in practice, and it happens to have occurred very near to the place where we honeymooned in the Smokey Mountains! A fun read about real people. Dr. Larimore comes across as a James Herriott for people.

Giving Away Simone by Jan L. Waldron, rank 6. A birthmother's story. Pretty raw and graphic in places, but it does help me to understand some of what a birthmother goes through in the adoption process. Unfortunately, this woman was not a believer and neither were her daughter or the daughter's parents. I am surely hoping for better things for Andrew.

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson, rank 7. If the clock were rolled back 50 years, this could be my story: young couple who know nothing buy large old home in country and invade it with ever-increasing number of bright and challenging children. This book is quite funny, if you can get past the author's penchant for run-on sentences and her smoking of cigarettes at all times and places, including in bed, in front of her children, and while in labor.

Quote of the Week:

"The education of a man is never completed until he dies. -- Robert E. Lee

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