My favorite books from childhood

I love reading. I always have, and as a child and teen I probably read a book or two a week. If I liked the book I read it in a day. Here are just a few of my favorites that I can remember off the top of my head. If I found a book that I really enjoyed I would read everything the author had written, so while I didn't write all of their books down I will mention it.


I received "A Little Princess" for Christmas (or my Birthday, it all blends together) in 4th Grade. I loved the book, I loved the pictures. I love the story! Also, "The Secret Garden" is another favorite.

In 5th grade I had a teacher that really challenged my quality of reading. I had never had a teacher push me to read "literature." Ms. Solberg did that for me, and I have to admit, its because of her that my love of reading flourished mightily. When I would finish one book she had another waiting in the wings. Katherine Paterson is still one of my favorite authors to this day, as you can see below I have two more selections by her.

"The Great Gilly Hopkins" is about a young girl who has been bounced around in the foster care system, how this poor child acts and reacts. When she ends up in a home that she thinks she'll hate she actually comes to love the foster mom and the other kids there.

"Lyddie" about a young girl who works in a factory in the early 1900's (late 1800's?)

"The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" is one of my all-time favorite and most read books. I absolutely love this book, even though I haven't read it for years and years. I still have my well-worn copy sitting in our guest room and I try to get visitors to pick it up and read.


"Year of the Black Pony"

My 4th grade teacher read us some fabulous books that were not nearly as well-known as what some other teachers read aloud. While I don't remember every book she read that year I do remember this one "Year of the Black Pony." It was the first book she read to us. She had a mural up in the reading corner that her son (or husband?) had painted. Each book she would put up a different mural. The second book she read to us was called "Half-breed" and is also a book worth mentioning.


"Homecoming"
Cynthia Voigt is another favorite author of mine and this is the book that began it for me. If you adults haven't read "Homecoming" I highly recommend it. This is a book I read in 5th grade and I remember thinking how long it was, but I was so sad when it was over because I no longer were a part of this family. Luckily, I found out she wrote 7 books based on this family and the series goes on for a number of years in the character's lives.

WORLD WAR II Phase

"The Devil in Vienna"

"The Devil's Arithmetic"

"The Upstairs Room"

"Number the Stars"

"Summer of my German Soldier"

I definitely went through a World War II phase and I am pretty positive I read every single book out there dealing with this topic. I literally couldn't get enough. It was such a tragic time in history and reading about how one survived was always inspiring to me, even if it was fiction.

"The Witch of Blackbird Pond"
I have always loved historical fiction and this is one of those books that wasn't nearly long enough for my liking. I really love big, thick books that I can dive into, but I loved the story very much, so I forgive it's relatively short length.

"Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry"
Another great book, that opened my eyes to the injustice of the world. I did read the other two books about the same family. "The Road to Memphis" and "Let the Circle be Unbroken" and I enjoyed those as well.

"Island of the Blue Dolphins"
A random award winner book that was in our bookshelf at home. I loved this story and the sequel called "Zia."

"Hatchet"

My 6th grade teacher read this aloud to us and I was enthralled with the story. Later on when I worked in a group foster home I read it aloud to some of our kids (10-18). Everyone loves a good story being read to them. I also went on and read many other books by him, and can't wait until Jameson is old enough to read him some of these "boy" books. I am always on the lookout for good boy books.

Those are a few of my favorites from childhood. Did you enjoy reading as a child? What were your favorite books?

Blog motivation

Getting my blog mojo back after our difficult week has been very hard. Much of the time my brain is still a muddle, so coming up with some creative blog topics is apparently outside my realm at the moment. Also, since I don't sit down with the computer (for any length of time) until after Jameson goes to bed, I find I am so tired! Jameson on the other hand has been crazy for the past two days. I believe he has some serious joie de vivre. It is slightly exhausting, but I am thankful for it. Maybe, its just me, but I have been trying to convince him he needs a nap. He still seems wiped out and whenever he is in my arms he gives me signs that he IS tired. We are all sorts of exhausted, Kevin fell asleep watching the Office tonight at 8:00 pm! This post is quickly becoming one in which I talk about how tired we are all, which does seem to be the case.

Kevin leaves for Vienna on Monday, which is coming up so fast. He isn't looking forward to being gone for three weeks, and we aren't looking forward to him being away. While he is away, my mom is coming out to help celebrate a couple of big birthdays for us, my 3-0 and she's about 30 years ahead of me. I am very excited for that, it will be nice to have her around, and Jameson will love having someone to constantly play cars with him. We are already planning some fun things.

I am looking forward to the Christmas season, making some new traditions with Jameson and breaking out some of the old ones. (Cinnamon Ornaments?) This year he is so much more aware of the little things, that I can't wait to see what he takes away from this Christmas!

After this very pathetic blog post I will attempt to come up with some more interesting topics for future posts!

Wordless Wednesday

I know these aren't the best photos, since I took them at night with my phone, but I am so excited about our new dresser and bedside tables!! We have literally been living out of suitcases since the end of July when I donated our bedroom furniture that Kevin's Aunt and Uncle had passed onto us. What is even better is that we got to use all those points that had been accumulating on our credit card over the years to "buy" giftcards. This picture doesn't do the dresser justice, but it is beautiful and well-made and already brimming full of clothes! We still need some sort of mirror to go above the dresser and I am excited to find one I love! For now, I am just SO happy that our room is put back together and Kevin won't be asking me every morning where his socks or his jeans are hiding. The dresser is actually bigger than it looks in this picture, its a nice wide dresser, the only thing is that the drawers aren't quite deep enough for my liking, but I will make do!

As for the bedside tables! I have been waiting for bedside tables pretty much since we got married! I have had substitutes, my latest substitute was a TV tray that held my books, waterbottle, phone, remote controls, but it was really wobbly! I am so thrilled to have a drawer I can put things in, like a journal, pens, etc. Below the drawer I have a shelf where I can stack even more books!! Anyone who knows me knows I love books. At this moment, I have four sitting on the table, now I need to pick some back-up books to go on the shelf! Kevin also loves to read before bed, so he usually has a stack of books on his side too, and I think he was just as excited about the bedside tables as I was! We also rearranged the room, so we'll see how we end up liking it, but I think it was time for change!

Broncos game

Weeks ago Kevin and I had made plans to go to the Broncos vs. Chiefs game because we share a season pass with a friend. After this long week we weren't sure we still wanted to go. I had come down with a raging cold I caught from Jameson, basically it was the croup cold that doesn't become croup in adults. We have been catching up on sleep and processing all that we had been through, and we just weren't sure it was a great idea. Saturday I had begun to feel better, and since we had both been looking forward to the game we decided to go.

Jameson went to our friend's house across the street. Their daughter is 5-years-old and loves Jameson because he does exactly what she wants, most of the time. He loves her because she is older, she has the same chill personality, oh and she is SO cute! Kevin and I rode the light rail into downtown, then went on the "sports walk" to the stadium with a multitude of other Broncos fans.

It was a great football game, the Broncos really showed up and played! I am not a huge football fan and even I could follow the action! It was a beautiful day to watch football, crisp and sunny. We indulged in bratwursts, gluten-free beer (Kevin), hot chocolate and a giant pretzel (for me!) It was nice to be out together, not thinking about our crazy week.

By the time we got home at 6:00, Jameson was wiped out from playing so hard and he went straight to bed. Unfortunately, I didn't get one picture of us at the football game! You will just have to trust me on how much fun we had!

The PICU stay

Thank you for your kind words and comments in regards to my last post. It really and truly was the scariest (hours long) moment of my life. It happened so fast and was so serious even the doctors thought it must be something besides croup. They sent out blood-work and respiratory viral panels that tested for all sorts of different viruses and bacterias.

I managed to sleep a bit between the hours of 3:30 and 5:00, but the new shift began at 5:00 and so the nurses came in to check on him, read his chart and introduce themselves to me. At this point he was out of the woods, but the processing had just began for me. I had a hard time closing my eyes because I saw the trauma unit, or if I opened my eyes I saw my baby not moving with tubes all over. Not being able to hold him was absolutely painful.

When Kevin got back at 7:30 I remarked to him that I had never gone this long without holding him. That Monday was a lot of processing for both of us. We both would cry at the drop of a hat.

By Monday afternoon, he was already beginning to breathe over the tube. The doctor made the decision to keep him under for at least another day, to ensure that the swelling had gone down. They didn't want to take the tube out only to have to re-intubate him because he was having trouble. Monday night on into Tuesday morning it became apparent that the swelling had gone down so much that the "title volume" on his respiratory machine was not getting the numbers the respiratory therapist wanted to be seeing. This was actually a good thing, it meant that he was breathing over the tube, and not a lot of his air was going through the tube, this also meant the tube would be coming out earlier than planned. Yay!

They began the process of weaning him off the sedatives around Midnight Tuesday morning. He would wake up once an hour or so, and I would jump off my bed and get him to calm down, stop fighting the tube, close his eyes and he would fall back asleep. I had sent Kevin home again to get some good sleep, and ended up calling him back into the hospital around 2:00 am. By 6:00 am with the new shift on, and more people in the hospital, they were ready to extubate him. The doctor wanted to him to wake up on his own before they took the tube out. They needed him to be able to fight aggressively to breathe.

He did fight, and the tube came out. He turned to me, and said "Carry You." Which is how he asks me to pick him up. The nurses were like, yes, hold him. He reached out his arms to me and I got to hold my baby for the first time in 32 hours. I was crying, and so thankful that I was getting to hold him close to me. I gave him his breathing treatments and he fell asleep in my arms. About three hours later the nurse asked if I wanted to put him down in bed and get some rest. We put him into bed and I fell asleep on the couch.

Later on, after he woke up, he ended up pulling out both of his IV's. Luckily the doctor said we didn't need to put them back as long as we could get lots of fluids down him. They brought in a new big bed (instead of a crib), so that I could sleep in bed with him. We ordered lunch to the room, then all of us fell asleep for a solid two hours. It was definitely the best Kevin and I had slept since the weekend. After we woke up and spent some time hanging out with a very angry, clingy, not feeling great Jameson, Kevin had to go home to work on his lectures for the next day. Jameson spent the rest of the day sleeping off and on. The nurse was afraid he wouldn't sleep that night, but really we had no trouble.

All the doctors and nurses were shocked at his rate of recovery, from how quickly the swelling receded to how fast he began breathing on his own. He was definitely a fighter. They began to talk about releasing him the next day. This was great news! Jameson and I slept like babies that night, him curled into me.

Wednesday morning at 5:45 am Jameson woke up crying that he wanted to go home. "Doh hoooooome." I convinced him to go back to sleep, but every time he woke up he said he wanted to go home. The doctor showed up at 9:30 and talked with us, told us that to their surprise this was just an acute case of the croup. There was no other virus that showed up. In his opinion, we were free to go home after the discharge papers were signed. Whoo-hoo!

I called Kevin who was teaching from 8:00-10:00 at the University. He had a break from 10:00-12:00, so he drove down and picked us up and we were home at 10:30. It was such a great feeling having him home! It had felt like the longest few days of our lives!

A week later he is nearly 100%. His cough is almost gone, and he is up playing around like he was before the croup. I can definitely say, that he was tired those first few days home and just wanted to veg in front of the TV (we let him), but now all he wants to do is "pway cars, pway football, pway basketball, pway tennis." So I feel confident my little guy is back, however, he is clingy, and doesn't like to be far from me and Kevin and we have had no problem pulling him into our bed each night when we sleep to keep a close eye on his breathing.

Life can change in an instant, we found that out all too well, but it definitely helps re-prioritize what matters, which is each other. There is no limit to the amount of money we would pay to have him healthy, it never even crossed our minds. We were so well taken care of in the hospital, from the minute we stepped in to the minute we stepped out, the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, even the housekeeping staff were all amazing. I don't think I will ever be able to express my gratitude for their part in helping to heal my son.

Sunday, a week ago, seems like ages ago, and I am very happy to put it behind us and just enjoy my boys!

Excuse my absence

Please excuse me absence from NaBloPoMo. It was one crazy week. As many of my "facebook" friends know we brought Jameson to the ER Sunday night for the croup. Actually, right after I pressed "publish post" on my Sunday's blog he woke up in severe respiratory distress. He had what is called "Stridor" (when the hole between the collarbone is sucking in) and caving in of his ribecage, almost all the way back to his spine. It happened very fast, and was (and still is very scary). I immediately called Kevin upstairs to tell him we needed to go to the ER, we bundled Jameson up and we were out the door in about five minutes. It was a ten minute drive to the hospital and Jameson was very calm even though he was having a difficult time breathing. We assumed he would need a nebulizer treatment with steroids to help calm his breathing and bring the swelling down. We assumed it would be a 3-5 hour hospital stay in the ER. I guess its good we didn't know it was going to be much longer, or we might not have been so calm.

Upon arrival we were immediately, and I do mean IMMEDIATELY, escorted back to triage where we immediately were taken to the pediatric doc in the ER. They got a breathing treatment started and took his information. We began to grasp how worried they were when the ER doc said she would not be leaving our side. They asked if he was sick before croup: Not really, a fever on Wednesday night that broke early Thursday. Is he sick often: No never, maybe had one cold his entire life. Is this his first time with croup: Yes.

After a second breathing treatment and no change with a dropping blood-oxygen rate they decided to move us to the Trauma Room. As we entered the trauma room, which was filled with doctors, nurses and assistants, the Peds. doc told us we would have to sedate him with a paralytic drug (ie put him under) intubate him and he would be in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit). What?!?!?! How did this get so serious? My son was just up, moving around today, talking, helping his dad put together his treadmill. They said it was the "A" of the acronym (ABC?) and it stood for airway, which I actually knew and it surprised her enough to ask how I knew it. Umm, shouldn't everyone know that after they have a first-aid or CPR class? No, I guess I randomly store medical facts in my brain.

By this time Jameson was almost finished with his third breathing treatment and had grown very listless, and its when the doctors really started to get worried. He was already undressed down to his "training" pants and socks. They told me they were going to get an IV going, did I want to stay and hold him? Yes, I didn't want to let him go. Its when my tears started falling. I couldn't help it, and its when I saw worry in my son's eyes that Mommy might not be able to help him. They quickly gave him the IV (bless the amazing nurse who hit a vein the first time), almost immediately he was out, but it was still the hardest thing I had to do handing him over to the doctors. (I am crying even as I write this).

The Peds. doctor, Summer Smith, is an amazing woman and told us we could stay if we so chose. We chose to stay, no way was I leaving that room. Kevin and I were both incredibly calm, whether it was shock or we just knew the doctors had a job to do. She "assigned" someone to sit with us and explain what was happening every step of the way. They had heart monitors on him, blood pressure, oxygen monitors, and there were about 15 people surrounding him and another 5 running around getting stuff as it was being called for. The intubation process was a long one. His airway was so swollen that they couldn't get a tube past it to give him oxygen. They began decreasing the tube size, and again, and again. If his oxygen levels got too low they "bagged" him, in other words pumped oxygen into him, which made his stomach get distended. Then, in order to get the air out of his tummy they put an NG ( tiny tube through the nose) to suck the air out.

At this point, (possibly 3o minutes into the intubation process) everyone was getting nervous, the doc was shaking, the guy watching the vitals began calling anesthesiologists, or the adult trauma doctor, pretty much anyone who could come in and try to intubate this 2.5 year old with a swollen airway. The adult trauma doctor was available and very calm, and had not been involved in the situation from the beginning. As they began to prepare to intubate him again his vitals began dropping, quickly. I watched that monitor go lower and lower and my heart began racing. Surely, they could see what was happening, right? Then I saw all the lines go flat. Just like on the TV shows the monitor started beeping. Then I heard, "He needs an epi-push (epinepherine in the IV to the heart), begin chest compressions now."

I remember looking at my baby and thinking how hard she was pushing on his chest, it was almost going flat against the table, and thinking, how the heck did we get here, this is the healthiest kid I know, would he have been ok if we didn't bring him in, is he worse off now? I could leave this place without my baby, what was the last thing I said to him, this isn't supposed to be like this... So many things were going through my mind that I can't even explain. Luckily, the doctors were (are) amazing and his heart began again and they got his oxygen levels up. What a welcome relief to see those monitors come to life, again. The adult trauma doc took his turn at the intubation, after the second try he was successful, and immediately his oxygen levels went up to nearly 100%. The tube size they had to use was meant for a newborn because his airway was so swollen.

After he was stabilized, he was x-rayed and then they moved us up to the PICU. He was doing fine, and all the doctors told us he was going to be great, even with the difficulty intubating him, but it was very scary to see him hooked up to tubes, and monitors. I can definitely go a lifetime without seeing my child like that again. Once up in the PICU we were told he would be under anywhere from two days to a week. Again, we were shocked and confused, this was a boy who just two days ago was running around with his friends in the green-space across from our house. After he was set-up in the PICU, the doctors checked on him and the ER doc came up to see how we were doing, exhaustion set in for us both. Around 2:30 am I told Kevin to go home and take care of the dogs and get some sleep. I lay down on the couch that the nurses helped me set up like a bed. I couldn't sleep because I had terrible dreams every time I closed my eyes and I was replaying every little thing that happened. He was out of the woods and was doing much better than when we brought him in, even though he didn't look it. I didn't know when he would be coming home, but at least I knew he WAS coming home.

Just writing that has taken it out of me tonight. I will finish the rest of our story tomorrow.