A trauma that wasn't and a trauma that was.

Forty-Eight hours after a very scary day I'm ready to write about it. I need to write it down so my kids have something to look back on to see how God worked in our lives. So here it is.

I was coming home from working in Ainsley's classroom. The boys were at my sweet neighbors (thanks Tracy!) and I needed more dishwasher detergent. (the exciting life I lead) Tracy had told me she could keep the boys a few extra minutes so I could run to the store after my time at school. So with Reagan I was going to run into Bi-Mart in Damascus really quick. This meant rather than turning right out onto highway 212 like I would going home, I was turning left. I came up to the stoplight, stared right at the green light and slowly came to a complete stop. I had some internal dialogue going on in my head and was completely driving on auto-pilot. I have no idea why I stopped, but just as I was staring at that green left turn arrow slowing down to a stop my attention was grabbed by a loud, long horn from a semi-truck. A big, red, semi comes flying down hwy 212 and right through the intersection. As he was right in front of me I actually had brief eye contact with the driver and he put one hand up in the air and I think he might have been mouthing "sorry," although honestly I might have made the sorry part up in my head. I'm not sure. As he flew through the intersection I looked up to the light above him and it was of course as red as red gets. I looked back over to my green light, and slowly think, "wait, why am I stopped?" Right then my light changes to yellow. Then to red. I sat there through that red light and process the fact that had I gone through the green light like I should have, that semi-truck would have hit me full speed right on my door and the door behind me where Reagan was. I keep thinking about that really old Amy Grant song Angels Watching Over Me and the line, "Near misses all around me, accidents unknown. Though I never see with human eyes the hands that lead me home." All I can do right now with tears in my eyes it thank the Lord that I get to be here another day. That was only the first time on Tuesday I got to see God at work.

I went on to Bi-Mart, got my dish soap, and picked up the boys. I came home, nursed Reagan then got out the crock-pot to get dinner ready. Just as I was opening the refrigerator my phone rang. My heart skipped a beat when the caller ID was from the school. When Kathy, the secretary, started talking I knew something wasn't good. She said Ainsley had fallen off the bars at school and had walked in from the playground but was having a hard time breathing and they couldn't quite tell what was wrong. She thought her back and stomach hurt, and that she hit her head. I said I would be right there. I put the little kids right in the car and headed to the school. Ironically, just as I was turning through the intersection from the near-miss this morning happened my cell phone rang and it was Kathy again, she said, "Tiffany we are calling 9-1-1." Not the type of thing you want to hear.

I was almost there so I beat the paramedics to the school. I parked and left the 3 little kids in the car and ran in the school. Ainsley was in the health room with the principal, secretaries, and the school counselor. I sat down next to hear and she wasn't moving and gasping for breath and prayed out loud for her. I prayed she would be okay, I prayed for the paramedics coming to take care of her, and for peace for her and for me. The paramedics came and started assessing her. In the interest of not making this blog post a novel I'll skip some of the details but they were concerned she could have a spinal injury, head injury, respiratory injury, or internal injuries. That is just not good. They strapped her down on a stretcher and took her out to the ambulance.

I had called Andrew, he rushed out of Barlow and was on his way to us. The staff at Ainsley's school was amazing, the school counselor and the secretaries took care of my little kids. They went out and were with them in the car, and then after Ainsley and I left in the ambulance, they brought them in and took care of them until Andrew got there. When Andrew got to the school he went in and got Ainsley's lunch and had them feed that to Hudson, then left him there to go on into kindergarten. He took Camden over to our neighbors (thanks again Tracy) and headed out with Reagan to the hospital. From the ambulance I called Arlene, my mother-in-law, and she was a saint and jumped in her car to come to our house from Salem so she could pick up Camden and be there when Hudson got home from school.

At first the paramedics said I had to ride in the front of the ambulance. But Ainsley's breathing was getting worse and he decided he was going to put an IV in as we were driving so he said, "your nice and calm and will help her be calm so as long as you are going to stay under control you can ride back here with her." We left the school and headed in towards Gresham, it had been about 5 minutes and Ainsley's breathing wasn't getting any better. Suddenly her blood pressure went up to 140 something over something I don't remember. Then it dropped down to 70 something again over something I don't remember - it is a blur. He started feeling her stomach again and said it was really hard and he was listening to it and said he couldn't hear any digestive noises, which he should have been able to. He then called up to the driver and told him to turn on the lights.

Evidently, "turn on the lights" also means go really, really fast. Suddenly we were going through town at about 70 mph and one thing I learned is that city streets aren't made for going 70. When you go 70 on the freeway it feels right, through town it is a bumpy, wild ride. Another thing is the siren on an ambulance is MUCH louder when you are actually in the ambulance. Wow.

The paramedic yelled over the noise to me and said, we are going to re-rout to Emmanuel because we need to get her into the trauma unit. Okay. More praying. I just kept praying outloud for her to be okay and for her to have peace, and to know that Jesus loves her and God was in control of everything.

He put oxygen on her and had an IV going. After he radioed ahead again to the hospital that we were 10 minutes out he explained to me what was going to happen. He told me a trauma unit would be waiting to take her right in. He had told them he thought she had internal injuries, he was guessing her liver or spleen because he could feel on the sides where her kidneys were and they felt okay. He said that a child her age wouldn't have muscles as tight as she had and so he thought that there was internal bleeding and that is why he couldn't hear anything. He said that if they thought they had lots of time they would do a sonogram to look, if they were more worried they would get her into a CT scan, and if her vitals continued to be really bad (her blood pressure was still weird and her pulse was really high) they would skip both of those and just assume there were internal injuries that they needed to fix and would take her right to exploratory surgery. He said he thought she would need to go right to surgery because kids often are okay for a little bit like she was, but then (his words) "crash" really quickly.

Just as we were passing the Rose Garden, so getting close to the hospital, her breathing started getting much better. She had enough breath to say a few words and the panic that was on her face from that horrible feeling of not being able to get enough air started to relax.

When we pulled up the the hospital it was just like you see on TV- a trauma doctor and a group of nurses were waiting right at the door and just surrounded Ainsley and began assessing her. A social worker immediately came and got me and started explaining that I wouldn't be able to be with her in the room they were taking her into. I said no problem, started talking with her and giving her my insurance card. After about one minute she said, your fine actually, so I can take you in with her. She brought me in the room and a nurse explained that we were going to go down to do a CT scan. Ainsley's breathing had settled down so much, and she was answering their questions. In the scan room they told me I could stay with her if I remained calm, otherwise she would be in there alone. The nurse said as long as Ainsley stayed calm they wouldn't have to sedate her for the scan, so if I could stay with her and keep her calm it would be best for her. Ainsley did great and did exactly what they told her to do. She had to hold so still, despite the scary situation, and did an amazing job. We were in doing the scan within about 4 minutes of arriving at the hospital. (on a side note, love the medical system-don't mess it up government)

As the scan was being read her vital signs continued to improve and they took her off the oxygen. She was talking breathing so much better. They came in to tell us about the scan and they had found some fluid in her abdomen but they didn't think there were any major injuries. The tightness in her stomach was in fact just her muscles that were so tight after the hard fall. They said she was in respiratory distress, that basically she had the wind-knocked out of her times about 10. He lungs had taken such a hit that there were spasms happening that were preventing her from being able to breath well. The oxygen in the ambulance had helped get her out of the spasms and helped stabilize her. They took her off the spinal injury board and un-strapped her head (to her great relief). They said they would keep her overnight to observe her, and she flipped out the most she did the entire time. She WAS NOT staying in the hospital over night.

The doctor finally agreed she could go home, (like Cyndi said, very few people walk out of the trauma unit) and she has a huge bump on the back of her head (we think she hit the bars on the way down, because she couldn't have gotten that bump from the bark-dusted ground) and her back and chest are really sore, but she is okay. She was up for much of the night on Tuesday night because her body hurt, (and emotionally she was a bit shook) but she wanted desperately to go to school on Wednesday (Wednesday is library day). One of her main worries in the hospital was a project that she needed to finish and it wouldn't be done because she wasn't there that afternoon. Her precious, amazing teacher put the project in her backpack and sent it home with Hudson, saving us much emotional turmoil.

Her other big concern is that she doesn't want the other kids to make a big deal at school about what happened. So... if you are reading this and are the parent of a friend of my little love, don't share the story with them. Again, her wonderful teacher protected this and kept it quiet so she didn't have to deal with it much the next day. It was okay with her for me to write about it, but she just doesn't want to talk about it much.

The lessons I learned on Tuesday? The first is God is good, God is good, God is good. Keep saying that 800,000 more times and it doesn't quite do it justice. The second is life is so precious. The third is that staying calm in scary situations really does pay off. I was able to make it so much less traumatic for Ainsley because I was able to be with her almost the whole time. Had I flipped out (like would have been easy to do) I wouldn't have been able to be close to her during everything.

I so thank Arlene for coming to our house so I didn't have to worry about the boys, Tracy for taking Camden on literally a moments notice, and the staff at school- they were so great. It is pretty wonderful to have teachers at the school telling you they are praying, and Ainsley's teacher gave her a card and stuffed animal the next day. We also so appreciate the prayers of everyone who prayed, my parents church and Tennille's church were praying. It all happened so fast and my phone calls were just to our parents and making child care arrangements, so I didn't even get Cornerstone called! God knows all of you would have prayed had you known what was happening :) . (did that last paragraph sound like I was accepting some award?)

Anyway- Hug your kids. Praise the Lord.

Determining her priorities for Valentine's Day

Last year after Valentine's Day I bought boxed valentines for the kids to use. They each picked out a kind and we bought them at like 75% off and packed them away to use this year. Ainsley picked High School Musical.

Fast forward to last week. She came to me and asked when we were getting the valentines out. She then said she thought she maybe wanted different valentines than the HSM ones. I asked her if she didn't like the HSM ones, and she said they were okay, but she thought maybe she was getting to old for High School Musical and she really wanted puppy ones. (does that make any sense?) Anyway, I decided it wasn't the few dollars that another box would cost, it was sort of the principle of buying other ones.

So after I thought about it for a little bit this was our conversation:

Me: Ains, I'm happy to drive you to any store you want to buy new valentines, but since I already bought one box I'm going to let you pay for the next box.

Ainsley: (without even hesitating for a second) Oh okay, then I'm going to be just fine with the High School Musical ones.

Funny how spending your own money on something changes the priorities a bit.

Baby Dedication

On Sunday we dedicated Reagan's life to the Lord at church. We have done this three times at Cornerstone, and once (Ainsley- pre-Cornerstone) at our house with our family and friends there. Each time we have written a letter to the child expressing our desires for their life. Barry made a video already (how great to have a pastor that is not only amazing- but puts up video links to events just a few hours after they happened!) - you can view the rest of the dedications (there were 5 kids total on Sunday- all sweet families with great kids) at www.cstonechurch.com

Reagan P dedication from Barry Arnold on Vimeo.

Here is our letter in case you can't see/hear the video:

Reagan Joy,

Sweet baby girl we love you so much. You are wonderful little baby who has proved the pattern that every baby in our family gets easier than the one before. However, I also have observed the pattern that every three-year-old gets harder than the one before, and it is because of this you are going to stay the baby of the family by being the last Pate baby. Three years ago when I wrote a letter like this to Camden I mentioned that if he was looking to fill a unique position in the family, the role of the calm-quiet, compliant child was available. Well, as it turns out that role is still open. However, I have come to the conclusion that you probably don’t possess the genetic material for such a personality, and I wouldn’t know what to do with that anyway, so instead I am looking forward to raising an ambitious, energetic, and strong girl.

My first desire in life is to glorify God in all I say and do, my second desire is to raise you and your siblings to have the same first desire as I do. Reagan, I pray you would have a fierce love for the Lord and while I will fail you I want you to know that He never will.

Reagan you completed our family so perfectly. You couldn’t be more loved by us, or by your older siblings. If experiencing each new stage of parenting has taught us anything, it is that we on our own are insufficient to the task of being good parents to you. The great thing about that is that when we rely on Jesus, we don’t have to live life and parent you and your brothers and sisters on our own. We pray that as you grow up, that you will pursue a deep relationship with our savior, that you will boldly proclaim his name and that you will realize your need to depend on Him always. We pray that we would continue to seeks God’s wisdom and quickly turn to Him in times of trial, so you can learn positive lessons from us.

Today Reagan, we dedicated you to the Lord. We ask that he would guide your life and you would serve him all of your days on this side of Heaven, and you would look forward to Eternal Life with him. We dedicate ourselves to doing our best, through the Holy Spirit, to raise you in a way that leads you to the Lord and into a life of service to Him.

Love, Mom and Dad

Haiti

This post is one that has been rattling around in my head for the last two weeks, stopping any of my typical cute little kid stories for appearing here. But this post doesn't "fit" my blog. But the earthquake in Haiti yesterday was the prompt I needed to actually sit down and write it, even if it doesn't fit. So stick with me even if you showed up here looking for a cute little story about something my kids have done.

My sister-in-law gave us a book for Christmas called "Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle." We celebrated Christmas with them early because we were going to Milton-Freewater for Christmas, so I had the book ahead of Christmas. While we were packing to go to M-F I put the book in the car thinking I would skim through it a little on the drive. With a 5 week old I honestly was not doing much reading, if I had time to sit down long enough to read I was instantly asleep. Well, I didn't even look at the book on the drive to M-F or the entire time while I was there. However, when we were driving home I found myself in the position to open it.

You have to picture the situation I was in when I started reading the book. We were coming home with my family so every seat in two cars was full. Nathan was in the front seat with of our van with Andrew, so I was in the very back of the van in the middle of Ainsley and Hudson. It is four days after Christmas and our van is quite full with 7 of us and all of our Christmas gifts.

The book is the story of the author and his wife as they went to serve in Haiti with an organization called Beyond Borders. To begin their time they had to spend 8 months living with a typical Haitian family. I knew very little about Haiti before reading the book, and I can hardly believe how deplorable the conditions are (and this was before the earthquake yesterday). 80% of the people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day, transportation is a nightmare, there are often floods and landslides, deforestation has ruined much of the country, water is usually contaminated, and the government is unstable.

Kent Annan, the author of the book, is a wonderful writer. The story is engrossing and compelled me to do something. What that something is, I don't know. However, there are some parts that I must share. On Kents blog he has a video that shares part of the book that precedes my favorite paragraph of the book. In this video he is listing all the things he wants after being in Haiti for 5 months:

And now the paragraph that follows:

"Things on the above list aren't all bad. But part of why I looked forward to moving to Haiti is because I hate how easy it is to satiate my hunger for God and for good and for love by stuffing my appetites with food, with entertainment, with ambition, with stuff. How easy it is to fill the echo chamber that calls me toward God and good and love with other clanging noises. The absence in Haiti of choices to feed this profound hunger is unpleasant.. but I need it I'm too often too weak to hunger for good (or, to be more biblical, to seek the kingdom of God) and to pull away from the dancing lights that have embarrassing power over me, like over a mindless, fluttering moth."

So here I was in the car with my four healthy, well fed, well clothed children who have more toys than they know what to do with reading about conditions that are worse than anything we would find in the poorest cities in America. I have lots of "stuff" that way to often satiates my hunger for God, and does the same for my children. Ainsley asked for something to eat just as I was reading one part where he recounts the story of a boy who rescued a page out of an American magazine that he had thrown in the garbage fire and the boy carried it around for months as one of his most cherished objects. Nathan handed Ainsley some tortilla chips and she started complaining because she didn't like that kind of chips. My response to her was a little more harsh than usual. It has really made me think about how my kids are growing up, and what I should do about it.

As I'm writing these scattered thoughts I just heard more news about the earthquake on the radio. They are reporting that there are bodies of children piled up outside of a collapsed school, the UN building collapsed, the national prison broke open so all the criminals inside have escaped, and they are estimating 500,000 people have died. It brings me to another quote from the book:

"The aphorism "Pull yourself up by the bootstraps" comes ironically to mind because it's so inapplicable: if you can't afford boots, don't have any power and barely any resources, if there's no way to hoist yourself up, then when you need something (say, food or tuition for your kids) the choices are either to ask for it or take it. Or suffer quietly. ...So are good, brilliant, powerful people working somewhere to find systemic economic and political solutions to the problems we see crushing down on our neighbors? And will the good guys win? Because too often they don't."

I know ultimately THE Good Guy wins. But in the mean time what am I doing for the people of the world who don't have the resources that I/we treat as a birthright? How can I live and how can I raise my children so we don't try and fill up our need for God with entertainment, other people, and the stuff that is so easily acquired here? Hmmm... My prayer today is that the earthquake in Haiti brings light and attention to this country that is in desperate need.

The Christmas Post

Happiness: Visiting M-F, Hanging out with my family, playing games all evening after the kids are in bed. It is good. Here are the kids with my parents on Christmas Eve~

Here are the kids on Chrismas Eve tracking Santa. So cute.

Eleison and Camden - little partners in crime. Today they were dumping out the entire Blokus game. When I talked to them about it Eleison said, "it was fun."

Thanks Strandbergs for the Gingerbread house to decorate. It was so fun, and some of the candy even made it on the gingerbread house!

My mom and dad made Christmas gifts for us. This was ours, my mom cut out and painted a Nativity set for us. I love, love, love it!

Look how cute it is- it will be so fun to put out every year.

For Nathan and Tennille they made windows for their house. They will look amazing. Say a little prayer that shipping all three of them back to Minnesota is successful.

One of my favorite quotes from Christmas is courtesy of Hudson. He got $20 in his stocking (good for the kids when my dad does the stocking stuffers). The $20 was tied in popularity as the favorite stocking stuffer with a little plastic gum ball machine from the dollar store. I asked him what he was going to do with his $20, which is about $19 more than he has ever had in his life. His response was classic: "I think I'm going to buy 2o more of the gumball machines."

Ready for bed Christmas Eve- How cute are my girls?

And finally, here is Reagan in her Christmas dress.

Hope your Christmas was as great as ours has been.

Three already???

Dear Camden~

You turn three today. THREE! I can hardly believe how big you are! You tell us all the time that you are a big boy, yet you love to get out of the shower and have me wrap you in a towel and, "carry you like a baby" and even rock you all snuggled up like that.

I started blogging right after you were born, so much of your life is chronicled here. You have led a life these first three years that has given me lots and lots to write about. I don't see that changing any time soon.

You have a personality that just doesn't stop. You make us laugh constantly and amaze us with the different things you figure out. You talk ALL THE TIME. As in CONSTANTLY. Something crosses your mind and it is out your mouth before the thought could possibly be finished in your little head.

You want to do everything your older brother and sister do. This year that included school. Since Hudson and Ainsley were both in school this year we had to do something, so when they started school this fall you and I started "potty school." You told everyone that you were going to potty school. It actually worked quite well, until you learned that you couldn't ride the bus and that was a bit of a problem.

You love the letter C and anything that has a C in it you think is yours. Other children with boxes of Crayola Crayons are a bit of a problem because there are two C's you can find, so clearly they belong to you alone. When Grandma Arlene told you that you had earned an "A" in potty school you were stressed and told her that you had a "C," at first she tried to tell you that an A was better, until we realized you were wanting a "C" because that is the best letter.

A few of our favorite things you do are:

-put your fingers up over your eyes to make little circles like they are binoculars when we are out on a walk and you are looking at something special.

-you save face when something has not gone quite right by saying in this cute little voice, "oh yeah, sorry, that was just and ac-s-dent."

-every book you read is your favorite.

-you call Reagan's blanket that is like your blue blankie her "pink-blue blankie."

-daily you exclaim that Reagan is, "so cute!"

-you will try to do just about anything.

The last few weeks since we had Reagan have been a bit challenging for you. You had a good run as the youngest in the family, and it is a tough position to give up. If I am nursing Reagan you sit on my lap too, if I'm holding her you suddenly have a tummy ache, and you are putting her binkie in your mouth and chewing it- you haven't used a pacifier since you were 6 months old so you don't even know how to suck on it! Despite being a bit traumatized right now I know it won't be long before you don't remember life before Reagan and that you are going to like having someone younger than you in the family and another person to play with.

Your energy level can totally wear us out, but we wouldn't change it for anything Camden. We love you so much and have so much fun watching you grow and develop. This last year has brought us so much joy in watching you change from a baby into a little boy.

We can't wait to see what this next year has in store for us with you. We know it won't be boring with you around. Most of all we are excited because we know this will be the year you start to know and understand more about the God who made you and loves you.

We love you Camden.

Here you are with your soccer ball birthday cake.

We went to Mt. Scott pool to celebrate your birthday.

I interrupt your day...

for some cuteness~

doesn't it make you want to go snuggle up and take a nap?

Yep, we are Hudson.

I was up in the attic getting Christmas stuff down and Hudson of course followed me. I don't know what exactly what it is about the attic that he is so drawn to, but he loves it up there. It could be the pull down ladder, the bins of mysterious stuff, or the slightly dangerous feeling he has up there, but for some reason he loves it.

When I moved Christmas tubs around to reveal our outdoor nativity set he looked at it and said, "OH! I forgot about that!" (Christmas decorations are so fun with kids, I love how they seem so new and exciting, but yet elicit memories for them at the same time.)

Then he said after a pause, "We are really big fans of Jesus aren't we?"

That is pretty high up my list of my favorite things my kids have ever said.

The Christmas Tree

There are lots of reasons I love living in Damascus. One of my favorites is being able to walk to Thompson Farms to get produce. It really benefits us every season because they have 8 acres of Christmas trees growing just across from our greenway. It made me giggle to think of the years we drove for miles to get to a you-cut tree farm. Here are the kids next to the tree we picked.

Proud Siblings

The adjustment to having a new sibling is going pretty well. Bringing Reagan home from the hospital to meet the kids was so fun. They were waiting outside for us and rushed up to the car, we had a hard time even getting her out of the car because they were so excited to see her.

They had made a big sign to put on our garage with my parents. It was so cute.

Ainsley is just so happy to have a sister. When we were at the hospital she wrote a song for Reagan that she sang over and over to her on the phone. When we got home she had written the song out on a little poster- this picture is when she was singing to her in person for the first time- the pink paper is the song.

The big surprise has been how Hudson just adores Reagan. He went from telling us he wasn't going to hold the baby if it was a girl, to BEGGING to hold her all the time. He is absolutely in love with her.

Camden is the one that has had his world rocked a little more with the new member of the family. This doesn't surprise any of us, being that he is the one who has had his position in the family changed the most. While he is being really clingy, he does exclaim at least 5 times a day, "she's so cute!" so at least he does enjoy her. He also has tried biting my feet, legs, and shoulder telling me that I'm feeding him, so we are for sure dealing with some issues.

I took Reagan in to the kids school so they could show her off. They both were so excited to show their friends how they could hold her and how little she was.

Everyone asks if Reagan looks like the other kids, she does. Her face is a little narrower than the other kids at this age, but she looks like Ainsley's baby pictures. She even has the same amount of hair. I'm so happy that they all match!