I realize we are just getting started helping our children and family as a whole unit live and succeed with chronic disease. We have definitely had more experiences in the hospital and at the doctors than an average family, but know there are other families that absolutely have had more experience than us. Watching each of our infants experience at some point an extended hospitalization left us feeling confused, afraid, lost, guilty, and often very angry. In the beginning I remember a toe to toe nose to nose discussion with one pulmonologist on call one day in the hospital with my 7 month old son (who heart breakingingly screamed bloody murder through every IV). The pulmonologist told me to “get used to this mom, you have to get used to this, you have children with a chronic disease you need to expect weeks in the hospital.” I was furious. I told her I refused to accept the hospital as normal and I refused to quit asking to go home as soon as we could as often as I could. She never came back to our room, and I never saw her again. She asked another pulmonologist to handle us (lets be honest me). I think I would like to let her know now that I apologize and I understand. I’m not happy about it, and it still feel angry about it a lot of the time but I understand that being intermittently hospitalized is part of my children’s life. We also understand that our emotions are second to helping our kids do their best to prevail with positivity and hope. Our attitude will be mirrored and magnified in them especially if it’s a negative one.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

That Time I Tried to Cut His Pants

We had not been dating very long but it was the first time my boyfriend was going to meet my parents. It was not a situation I had really been in ever, having an official boyfriend and being out of highschool that is (a grown up relationship, as much as it is when your 18 anyway)and I wanted it to go well. My parents had already left for my younger brothers football game and we were going to meet them there.
He knocked on the doorbell and I took my mental notes of his appearance scanning for anything my parents may notice. He didn’t dress like my brothers so I figured that would be a red flag right away. Of course I was very taken with him and wanted them to feel the same way. My mom is an exceptional laundress and always made sure our shirts were ironed and we looked put together. I remember several times being ready to leave for the night and stopping in to say goodbye to her and having her ask me to let her iron my shirt before I left. So when my boyfriend walked in with the hems of his jeans hanging off his pant legs 3 inches on both sides I assumed he did not know he was in such disarray or he would not of left home like that.
My natural instinct was to grab a pair of scissors and cut off the dangling hems, once again assuming he just hadn’t gotten to it himself yet. So I did. He had no clue why I was searching for scissors in the kitchen since he thought we were leaving right away but when I bent down to cut off the hanging off part of his jeans he was surprised and to my surprise very upset. He wanted to know why in the world I would go off and try to cut his pants, while I of course wanted to know why in the world he would walk around tripping over and having his pants being stepped on. But in the end of course they were his pants.
Now of course it seems very rude of me to – without even asking – presume cutting his clothes would be something he wanted. His reasoning was endearing. He said he had finally broken in this particular pair of jeans. He had worn them on his mission for our church in Australia, and also worn them many days working at his current job. He had worked hard to get the hem worn down enough to unravel and my cutting it off would be to ruin all of his hard work and take away the significance of a nicely broken in pair of jeans.
I learned a lot from that interaction between us. One thing of course was to communicate better myself and stand still longer mentally before jumping to fashion and appearance conclusions. Another thing I learned was how sentimental my boyfriend and future husband was.
All of these things I thought about last month when I was going through a long collected stack of old jeans and cutting them up for a project. The style of his dress has evolved with his age and he doesn’t wear his jeans quite so baggy anymore but his sentimentality remains a great part of his charm to me.

The "broken in" jeans

Of course he would want this cut off right?

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