Spina What?

Here we are over 2 years later and Gavin amazes me every day. Sometimes I even 'forget' he has an 'abnormality' Sometimes I catch myself rubbing his head and stopping on his shunt thinking wha? for like .000003 seconds. Simply because he HAS an abnormality to 'you' but not to us, not to him. To us he is absolutely normal. He has totally mastered running and it is the cutest thing ever when he chases his brother or sister around.

Tuesday night Gavin learned something new. He learned to kick. He is a little slow but he picks his foot up keeping his balance and kicks a ball around the yard.

Look out David Beckham!! :)

Anyway, I wanted to cautiously brag about the lil mans new skills!!! We are so proud of him, proud of all 3 of them! Best kids ever.

You don't always get what you want.

i will preface this with 2 things.

1 gavin broke every key on the laptop so you are getting the lazy version, don't give me any crap.
2 i really want to blog, but i don't feel like talking.

i have had one of the best summers this summer. walker was here for 6 weeks, six very short weeks. we stayed busy as usual. we had so much fun though.

we had lots of baseball games

we visited the museum.

we had sushi night, walker and avery both tried it!!

we swam, went to the arcade and kings dominion. we visited my family at the common grounds.

saw fireworks

went to nc to see the other half of my family. fished, ate, had straight up tons of fun. (did i seriously say straight up, and now i am singing paula abdul, lord help me)


we did lots. this past sunday came so fast, too fast. i hate how this theory this non-existent thing called time does its own thing. (read my post on time).but sunday came none-the-less. i was going to have a few more hours with walker and get to see my parents but things changed when jason's grandmother had a stroke. she is doing much better now (thank you for all the kind words, thoughts and prayers). the woman is amazing, his grandma, fought for the royal navy in WWII she has seen things that we can only imagine, died once (medically speaking) has "defeated death" at the very least 6 times. just goes to show you that you really go when it is your time. anyway, she is one of the strongest women i have ever met.

i am not going to play all strong and amazing, i hurt. i miss my son. i laid in bed about a week ago thinking, this is all how it should be, how i want it to be and then i had to remind myself, you don't always get what you want. (you can read more about that here)


so as i went about my day today things happened. like i was reading pioneer womans blog (another totally amazing woman) and thinking how much i would love to have her life, but i don't always get what i want. then i was hungry, you can't read her stuff with out being hungry it is impossible. so i decided i wanted a stuffed baked potato. when i was younger in my early teens my mom worked at this little cafe and that is when i became addicted to stuffed potatoes, hot sandwiches and pitas. so i was nuking, yes-sir-reee i used the microwave for the tater. as i shoved that tater in that magical little box of some unknown power that may or may not cause cancer. i wondered what my great-grandmothers must be thinking, they probably rolled over in their graves. then i burned the stupid thing, you know how microwaves burn things just in one hot spot. then thought well now they are laughing saying "i told you so". i wanted that stupid potato so bad so i scraped the ok parts out into a bowl, buttered it grabbed the ham diced some up topped it, spring onion oh yes please! then some sour cream, grabbed it expiration july 25, ok so, yesterday, surely i will not die if i eat it. opened it: green mold, but not on the sour cream only on one side of the container surely i can scrape the sour cream out with out touching it??? (see the desperation?) so mid-dollop i decide i should probably taste it. have you ever had to take penicillin? you know that funky smell? it tastes that way too. did you know that penicillin was discovered and made by mold? yeah that is what it tasted like. anyway i ended up with like 4 bites of potato, mostly ham. then i laughed and thought "you don't always get what you want."

WAGdesigns' photostream

WAGdesigns' photostream on Flickr.

A picture a day.

ok since I am SOOOOO good at keeping up with this blog /sarcasm. I started another one.

you can read it here:

http://heatherslifeinpictures.blogspot.com/


"This blog is a bit different. It is more for me than it is for you, but you gain too. You get to watch my life 1 day at a time through 1 picture at a time. I am doing a 365 day challenge to help myself savor the days of life. Life really flies by in the blink of an eye and we seem to forget simple things that happen each day. This will also give me a lot of practice with my camera as well!."

I am such a slacker, but it is SUMMER-TIME! Fresh veggie pasta bowl.

I promise myself every-time I blog that I will do it at the very least 2 times a week. It never fails something comes up, I am too exhausted or we have been running all day long.

So summer is by far my favorite time of year. I love the smell of rain on a hot day or fresh cut grass. I love the fresh veggies, the flowers, the bugs. I love it ALL!

Since I have been such a slacker I will give you this :D.

Today I was starving and decided I wanted to make a pasta "something" for lunch. I grabbed a couple ingredients that we happen to have around the house.

Mozzarella, bacon, pasta (your choice I used Gemelli) Tomato, Squash, garlic, onion, basil, parsley, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper (which if you look closely you can see it with the kosher salt on the right hand side.) I wanted so badly to have my pepper mill in the photograph but guess what!? My name is high gear Helen and I love to leave things that melt entirely too close to the stove.

so as you can see the pepper mill works fine it just isn't pretty :D Anyway, onto the FOOD.

So I started my salted water so it could get to a boil for my noodles. Then in a small skillet I threw the raw bacon, onion and squash. Just before the bacon got completely done I threw in the garlic. Once the Garlic was softened enough I drained the bacon grease and added a pad of butter. Once the noodles were done I added them to the skillet with the fresh herbs and cheese. I mixed it up in the hot skillet just until the cheese is starting to melt! Then I added my diced tomato to the mix just to get it warm. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and even some fresh parm if you want!

Enjoy..

Lets EAT!

I love food, you know that already :)
I bet you can't guess what is in it, ASPARAGUS.

So Monday night I had a craving for some good food. So my imagination was flowing and I was thinking about everything I had in the fridge. Finally I decided what I wanted to do. This dish really came together and was more than easy to prepare. It can be a one-skillet meal, which is even better!

^That is the finished product of yummy-ness.

Here is how I made it, now I ate this ENTIRE serving alone ( hey, I like food) but you can probably serve 2 people with it (well, probably SHOULD serve 2 people with it, but I bet you can't resist to eat the whole bowl)

What you need:
3 to 4 slices of bacon diced up.
small onion sliced thinly (I think I used about a half a large onion)
1 Large garlic clove (I sliced mine because I like to bite into garlic but you can mince it too)
about 10-15 asparagus spears snapped off at the woody stem and then cut into bite sized pieces ( I use thin asparagus, I like it much better than the big thick pieces).
2 large handfuls of baby spinach, I would say maybe 2-3 cups (remember it cooks way down so even though it looks like a lot it won't be)
1 large boneless skinless chicken breast diced into bite sized pieces (I only used half a breast)
5 grape tomatoes halved
Fresh grated mozzarella, please grate your own, pretty please? (Mozzarella can be a pain to grate, just stick it in the freezer for a little while to make it firm if you hate grating it, don't leave it too long!!)

Now, because I was making my meal and my husbands meal I sautéed the chicken in another pan but you can sauté your chicken and bacon together.

You really don't need any oil at all, the bacon will give you enough but if you find it hasn't you can add a tad of EVOO (or butter :P) My bacon gave me too much grease so at the end I served with a slotted spoon to drain some of it.

So in the pan put your bacon and chicken, once your chicken is cooked and bacon is still soft (don't let it get too crunchy) add your onions and allow them to get a little soft, then add your garlic (it burns easily so I waited until adding the last of the greens to add it), asparagus and spinach.

Once your asparagus is cooked to your liking ( I like mine not too soft, not too crunchy) add your tomatoes, you want to just lightly sautée them to get the juices flowing.

Then...my favorite part...CHEESE. Cheese is the best thing in the world, even asparagus takes a back seat when it comes to cheese. Add your cheese until it is melted

That is it, see how easy? It is fresh (halfway healthy, that counts right?) and it is really so good. You could even go a step further and serve it mixed in some Penne pasta you could just toss it together in the skillet and add cheese or you could go a step further and add cheese and bake it. There are always endless possibilities with food, always!

Time: Happy 2nd birthday Gavin.

Time, what is time really? When you are 5 and waiting for Christmas when it is only June, time is the slowest thing ever. When you are 8 and there is only 2 weeks of summer break left time just doesn't exist, days are minutes, hours are seconds. As a Freshman in High school 4 years is an eternity, as a Senior they were the fastest 4 years of your life. Then you become a parent. 9 months of pregnancy with my oldest that meant almost 40 weeks (well not quite because he was born early) of morning/mid-morning/noon/afternoon/evening/night sickness, With my daughter it was about 6 months of sickness then a broken tail bone and sciatica then there was the youngest, the pregnancy all issues aside was a breeze but it was NINE LONG MONTHS then the labor, Walker was 26 hours of labor at hour 18 I was positive I was going to be pregnant for the rest of my life and would never see him. Avery was 8 hours, not so bad but still an eternity when you are waiting to meet your child. Gavin was a c-section the fastest by far but still took forever. Then all of a sudden you blink or sneeze or something and they grow up. Where are my teeny little babies? They are all growing up.

So here we are today, May, 11th, Gavin's birthday. He is 2. For some reason I cannot pull it together I am a total wreck. With Walker it was his 5th birthday and his first day of kinder then it was his 9th (and 10th and most likely every next birthday from here on out) With Avery 3 was hard. Gavin is only TWO. I think it is so hard since he just started walking recently, I have allowed my brain to believe he is still a "baby" he still needed me but now, yes he needs me, but he doesn't NEED me. Then there is the whole he is my last one factor. I don't know what it is that is causing me so much heartache but man when one of my kids graduates some one better call for a straight jacket. :)

I should be ecstatic (and I am, but still sad). If you follow my blog or know me in real life you know that Gavin has had challenges (to say the least) and his miraculous accomplishments are certainly something that I am proud to share. Gavin has come so far and we are so truly blessed. Gavin was born on a cool Monday morning we had to get up and leave early to be to the hospital for a scheduled c-section. I was going in somewhat blind to what we may encounter with spina bifida you really have no clue until after the child is born (unless you ask the perinatologist that will absolutely insist your child will have poor quality of life and most likely not walk and that you should abort immediately, thank God for my faith there was no way I could be swayed) Nervous and nauseous I was taken to this cold room full of faces I didn't know finally Jason was brought in and shortly we saw our sweet baby boy. 7lbs, 10oz I honestly didn't notice the huge cyst on his back where his spinal cord was, I do remember thinking man he has a huge nose, lol. He had a ton of blonde hair and the fattest cheeks I have ever seen. It was a strange feeling. I got to kiss him just before they whisked him away to the NICU. Jason went with him as I finished up my surgery. The next day Gavin went for his first surgery the closure of his back a delicate and precise surgery that ultimately would be a huge decision factor on what he would later be able to do. Our doctor was/is amazing. One week later I was devastated to find out that Gavin would need a shunt to remove fluid from his brain. I didn't have a choice and was less than prepared for that one. In the coming years we had countless doctors appointments, specialists, physical therapy, urologists etc... Anyway, you have all heard the stories, the scares, the praises, the miracles. Gavin is walking: unassisted. Gavin has not had to have a shunt revision in two years no huge medical issues at all, as a matter of fact you would never know looking at him that he even is "special needs".

With all of that said. Happy Birthday G-man. We are all so very proud of you. I am so happy that God picked little ole me to be your Mother.