The Taste of September

September was our chance to change the last few bites of summer so that the memory of our favorite season of the year would leave us with a sweet aftertaste.  We had one last swim at our favorite pool with some of our favorite people...

...we enjoyed outdoor treats and our neighbor even tried his hand at strawberry shortcake as a thank you for all of the summer baked goods we have shared with him.

We played outside and the girls built more fairy houses.  And after Charlie smashed them, and then Violet smashed them, Lucy and Emma built the fairy houses again.

I know it's hard to believe that cuteness like Violet and Charlie are not friends of the fairies, but maybe in time one of them will build houses for fairies too.  In the below left hand picture, Charlie was sunbathing next to my Sweet Autumn clematis, one of my favorite flower blooms in my garden each autumn.

For the most part, the girls play with one sister while one sister is excluded.  That is why I am always so happy when all three play harmoniously together.  In the below pictures they have all agreed unanimously that a hockey net makes a better bed in a play house than a goal for a game, and that slip and slides are a great way to spend the afternoon on your first day of school.  Oh, and also that sidewalk chalk is fun for everyone and if you gang up on your parents - as in all three girls asking pretty please for the same thing - chances are pretty high that you will get what you are asking for.

We are homeschooling again this year, and despite it's many challenges, still believe that the benefits for our family outweigh the drawbacks.  Violet is happy to join in our school day and I have even planned out some preschool activities for her, despite the fact that she is on the young side.  She just loves to be included and it is exciting to see how fast she picks up on things.  The day before school started I surprised the girls with all of their new books, a new educational game for each girl as well as art supplies and other fun school accessories.  This grand reveal has become a tradition now, and helps to build the excitement for the new school year and gives our year a fun start.

Our first day of school started out crazy busy.  We are getting into the routine now more and more, but the simple truth is that we have bitten off more than we can chew this semester.  We found out almost the same week that school started that Lucy would benefit from vision therapy to help with her reading challenges.  It is a steep financial and time commitment and because of that, is our top priority.  If we don't put our all into this, then we might as well flush our money down the toilet because it is the equivalent of a really nice family vacation complete with airfare, a rental car and a nice resort.  For two weeks.  Yup.  BUT, we are already seeing major improvement with her eyesight and watching her grow by leaps and bounds with her reading.  Priceless.  However, we had already committed to a lot of extracurricular activities, all of which require a deeper level of involvement than just showing up.  Below are the kids in their piano classes, drawing class and knitting class - all of which take place in the same two and a half hour time block, with a half hour worked in there for a lunch break.  Very efficient and a great group of homeschoolers, but definitely a long time to keep Violet out of trouble.

Something else I didn't account for was how much waiting that Violet would have to do while Lucy and Emma were in their activities.  Our first knitting class, Violet got her hands on a ball of yarn and although it wasn't as bad as the time she knotted herself to the shopping cart at the craft store, she had made several circles of the classroom, students' feet and chair legs before I realized what she was doing.  She doesn't seem to mind the waiting so much though - it is really me that ends up exhausted and cranky.  In the below, top left hand picture, Violet is very content watching dancers get ready for their lesson while Lucy and Emma are in their ballet class.  Violet also waited at a nature center while  her sisters enjoyed a class about birds, and she doesn't seem to mind playing with the blow dryers after Lucy and Emma's swimming lessons.

Yes, we already had more than we could reasonably handle BEFORE we had the twice a week commitment to vision therapy.  This semester has definitely been a learning lesson for me.  In order to learn something with any speed, you need to have singular focus - to be involved in so many things makes it impossible to put in the time required to master anything.  You better believe I will remember this when it comes time to sign up for next semester.  

I am trying to make the best of it though, and one of the things that helps is to make sure we are done with school before the extra curriculars start for the day, and to pack a lunch so that wherever the day may take us, we can enjoy a picnic lunch somewhere, which always helps to make the day feel more adventurous.  Lucy and Emma take a yoga class at our local community center and Violet and I play at the park while they are in class, and then we all enjoy a picnic together after.  In the top, right hand picture below, Violet is excitedly showing me that the tunnel on the playground that day is clean and dry!  So many times it is filled with mud and she can't crawl through it.

Lucy's vision therapy is an hour long, and I pack a giant bag full of storybooks and games that I would otherwise not play if we were at home and I had things like food prep, dishes or cleaning to take care of.  Don't get me wrong, I still leave the appointment feeling completely worn out, but at least I got to have some quality time with my youngest two in an environment free of household distractions!  Now if only I could find the silver lining of the car ride there and back - vision therapy is an hour and a half round trip for us and the girls fight so much in the car.  That last sentence may be the most understated sentence of this entire blog post.     

It's cider mill season and you better believe we are enjoying it.  My youngest sister got a job at our favorite cider mill so that is even more trouble for us.  

We have been on several fall hikes this past month - with my parents, with friends, and Will and I even had a couple of dates out where we were able to hike our favorite trails in record time.  We finished one trail and had to think for a moment why we were done so quickly.  And then it hit us that we didn't have to carry any one, stop for random bug bites, water breaks, snack breaks, etc.  I love hiking with my kids but wow, hiking with my husband kid-free is an entirely different and wonderful experience!  The photos in clockwise order from top left below:  the girls and I playing in the creek after yoga class, a honeybee we spotted on a date-hike, the girls holding up what they want me to buy them in a store, an enormous Sweet Autumn clematis it the school by our house, and all of us enjoying a picnic dinner at dusk on a Friday night after our town's annual art show in the park.

We also enjoyed the annual cemetery tour in our neighborhood and the center picture below is of an actor depicting the man who founded our favorite cider mill!

I had the honor of being the God Mother of my cousin's sweet baby daughter this past month and we had a wonderful morning celebrating the newest member of our clan.  Two of my favorite pictures below are the top left of my sweet God Daughter just hanging out as her mom changed her diaper in the pew, and the top center picture of Lucy and her cousin's face as my God Daughter was baptized.  Can you believe that she slept through the entire thing?

We also spent time with friends new and old this past month.  Pictures in clockwise order from top left below: running into our friends at the craft store and realizing we had BOTH received letters in the mail with coupons for being the top customer!?, jumping in the bounce house at our friends' baptism party (same day as my God Daughter's baptism!), making sidewalk art with friends, at the park, friends all packed into the backseat of our car to play, a picnic with friends and chopsticks and finally in the center picture, getting to hold our friends' hamster.

We had a good honey crop that we harvested this past month...

...with lots of help from Will and the kids...

...sticky fingers, sticky floors and sticky grins...

...and several honey bee classes and a Honey Open House to end the season.

Our backyard harvest this past month was meager if you don't count the honey, but I compensated by going to a freezer meal workshop with a friend where we made 10 healthy freezer meals in two hours.

Imagine the irony then, when the following day Will ended up having a health crisis that checked him into the hospital for six days.  Cue the thawing of my first freezer meal...

Will was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when he was 18 years old.  After years of steadily becoming allergic to each drug he was prescribed to get his condition under control, several hospital stays and a multitude of kidney stones stocked up in his kidneys as a side effect from the colitis we were left with two options - removal of his colon or a chemotherapy type drug that he would need infusions of every six weeks for the rest of his life.  Neither of these were acceptable options for us, and that is how we started the journey that became the life we have today.  We radicalized how we ate and realized that very few ingredients bought off of store shelves were healthy enough to keep Will healthy.  After our lifestyle change, we enjoyed ten years - almost to the date - of Will in complete remission from ulcerative colitis.  That is why several weeks ago it came as a surprise when his symptoms started coming back - fast and furious.  We had a very stressful summer with Will's job, the loss of our chickens and the peace of our own backyard, lice, and finally, the car accident he was in this past month.  We cleaned up our diet and Will went back on the supplements that he utilized ten years ago to put him into remission.  Despite these changes, his symptoms continued to get worse.  When he spiked a fever, the on call doctor at the gastrologist told us to take him straight to the ER.  After almost three weeks of symptoms he had lost over twenty pounds and was exhausted.  He was motivated to take care of his own health and would get cranky anytime I suggested that perhaps this was more serious than he realized and we should call in backup.  I didn't realize just how scared I had become over the last couple of weeks watching Will's health steadily decline until we were waiting in the ER for the cat scan results.   Around midnight we were told that the good news was that there were no unusual masses found in his abdomen but that 50% of his colon was inflamed and starting to perforate.  It wouldn't be until the next morning that we spoke with his doctor, but for that moment, we at least had the relief of knowing it was just a bad case of colitis.  We began to relax and while Will waited for the morphine to start working, we had a chuckle when we realized that he was on the Brown Team in the ER.  The following day we met with the doctor and were told that it was a miracle that Will was still alive and that we should have never waited as long as we did to come in.   This was hard news to hear, as was the fact that he is still left with the same options as ten years ago - drug infusions or colon removal.  After the doctor left the room, I started praying and pleading to God.  Finally I called out to Luke, and asked him to take a note from his sister Violet, and take God's face in his hands, force Him to turn his face towards us and ask God to heal Will.  No sooner did I finish that prayer when I looked out of the fourth floor hospital window and saw a monarch butterfly take it's time flying past me.  Above smoke stacks and cooling towers in an industrial wasteland IN THE RAIN - a monarch butterfly that I am certain was a gift from God to tell me that He has not left our side, and yes, Luke does have His face in his hands and will make sure that his earthly family is going to be okay.  Will saw the butterfly too and we watched in awe as it danced outside of the window on a gray, rainy day.  No matter what happens, God is with us.

Through the help of Will's and my parents, friends and family, we made it through Will's six day hospital stay.  At one point I was driving home from visiting Will in the hospital and realized that I had a flat tire.  To further complicate matters, my other car was already in the shop.  Thanks to my father and father-in-law, my cars were taken care of and everything worked out.  It just makes you wonder why it all hits the fan at the same time though!  And through it all, the exhaustion, the loneliness of having your life partner so sick that I have to hold it all together without him, I had my girls.  There is nothing like a crisis to make you look forward to the simple things - giving them a bath, reading them a story, and just being together.  Kids make it so much easier to live in the moment and to really savor the simple things in life.  They missed Will so much, but thanks to FaceTime and the generosity of our family and friends, they were okay too.

I will save the recovery journey for next month's blog post as we are still currently living it right now.  Will is a very optimistic guy though, and our prayer right now is that we can get him back into remission without the drastic measures we were left with ten years ago.  He is currently on a heavy dose of steroids to help reduce the inflammation in his body and if you could join us in prayer that this is enough to heal him, we would greatly appreciate it!

We have lived a lot of life in the last ten years, all of which would have been drastically different if we hadn't discovered an alternative way to get Will's colitis in remission.  We have had four beautiful kids, something that wouldn't have happened if he had been put on the blood transfusion medication, and we have found a way of life that would otherwise have never been on our radar.  Our gardening, our cooking, our chickens and even our bees are all gifts from Will's colitis and we are confident that this latest bout will also offer us many gifts as well.  Until then, we are taking it day by day and trying to find the lessons and gifts amongst the pain.  September, we thought you were going to leave a good taste in our mouth to last us until spring but I'm afraid if given the choice, I would spit you out and demand my money back!  I'm not the one calling the shots though, and so because I have no other option besides despair, I am going to believe these last bitter bites of summer will be acting like medicine to our soul and the end result will be amazing still!