WARNING...GROSS PICTURES AHEAD!!!

Well, I decided to post the "after" shots instead of the before. They are a lot more mild. If you have a sensitive stomach, please do NOT scroll down and get sick. If you are really brave, you can click on the pictures and make them bigger.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but all that skin was flapped away - especially the really pale, creepy looking stuff. Basically from the joint at the palm to the next joint up his finger, everything was just gone.

He deserves some major credit for needing no pain medication. We are being good. He is taking is antibiotics and we are cleaning it out at night. He should get stitches out on Friday...by the way it looks now, I wonder if it will hold together. He's got a few more days to heal though.

You can see how far around his finger the stitches go and the abrasion on the other side of his finger as well. His hand is starting to change colors and it is swelling in all kinds of places. Sometimes I think I should have gone into medicine...I'm fascinated by the way the body works and is made...I can look at it all day. ...but I don't like touching it. ick.

a poem

**This helped me today.**

What Makes a Mother

I thought of you and closed my eyes, And prayed to God today.
I asked what makes a Mother, And I know I heard him say:

A mother has a baby, This we know is true.
But, God, can you be a mother, When your baby's not with you?

Yes, you can He replied, With confidence in His voice.
I give many women babies, When they leave is not their choice.

Some I send for a lifetime, And others for a day.
And some I send to feel your womb, But there's no need to stay.

I just don't understand this God, I want my baby here.
He took a breath and cleared his throat, And then I saw a tear.

I wish that I could show you, What your child is doing today,
If you could see your child smile, With other children who say:

We go to earth and learn our lessons, Of love and life and fear.
My mommy loved me oh so much, I got to come straight here.

I feel so lucky to have a mom, Who had so much love for me.
I learned my lessons very quickly, My mommy set me free.

I miss my mommy oh so much, But I visit her each day.
When she goes to sleep, On her pillow's where I lay.

I stroke her hair and kiss her cheek, And whisper in her ear.
"Mommy don't be sad today, I'm your baby and I'm here."

So you see my dear sweet one, Your children are Ok.
Your babies are here in My home, They'll be at heavens gate for you.

So now you see what makes a mother. It's the feeling in your heart.
It's the love you had so much of, Right from the very start.

Though some on earth may not realize you are a mother,
until their time is done.

They'll be up here with me one day,
And you'll know that you're the best one!

"What Makes a Mother"
By Jennifer Wasik
Used with Permission
in memory of Zachery Thomas Wasik
For all Mother's missing their babies!

who needs so many fingers anyway??

I'm sad...I had this huge long post...and it's gone. This will be an abridged version.

Last saturday I went to visit my wonderful friend Nicole. I was going to hang out and eat lunch. Soon after I arrived I got the "we're pregnant!" announcement and I'm so excited for them! I'm so glad that she is a good enough friend to know that even though we've had some sad news recently, I would still want to celebrate with her. Now I can experience it through her eyes and not have to have the "not so fun" symptoms yet...

Sunday we had a great day at church. It was good to be back after so long. The message on Romans 8:28 was exactly what I needed to hear. It is amazing how God meets needs that we don't even know that we have. I think I just needed to cry...to finally let some emotions out...and the service was right where I was at.

Our work week started as normal. Nothing out of the ordinary..until thursday when I got the call from a frantic co-teacher/co-coach at ryan's school. I could barely understand her except that she said ryan wanted me to know he was Ok. To keep a very long story short...he was running past a volleyball pole at full speed and his wedding ring caught on a screw that was sticking out of the pole. He was basically body-slammed to the ground. Unfortunately, the ring didn't come off his finger...it essentially buried itself in it. They called 911 b/c he was losing circulation and they had to cut off the ring (he later told me this was the most painful part of the ordeal)

When the ring yanked up his finger, it removed more "stuff" than I care to mention. When he got to the hospital after a fun ride in the ambulance, his mom and I were there to meet him. (she works there so I got to be in places i otherwise wouldn't have been) After a way too long wait in the waiting room, we ended up in a "room" which was basically a bed and a chair behind curtain #6. Joy...and guy behind curtain #9 needed security. No joke I felt like I was living in an episode of Grey's Anatomy...

I wish I could describe the grossness (is that a word??) of this wound...we took pictures on the camera phones. I could see what I thought was bone...I was later told that it was the tendon covering the bone which was great news...but STILL. ewww...

Round one of x-rays showed a lot platinum in the wound from where they removed the ring. They had to numb it with injections (OUCH) and then irrigate it (dump 3 huge bottles of saline into it while holding it over a trash can) to remove the metal. Then we had round 2 of x-rays that determined they removed enough metal to close it up since there didn't appear to be tendon or ligament damage. (We were initally told we might be going into surgery ...)

He got 15 stitches in ONE finger...that is how jagged and horrible this wound is... I can't believe he was in such good spirits. He got no pain meds at the hospital at all. I guess I can't give him a hard time about being a wimp anymore...

Today we had a follow up visit for a 2nd opinion. The great news...he doesn't think he needs surgery either. Merely a flesh wound....a really, really bad one. Thank goodness i have a strong stomach...I get to change the bandages every night. AND he went to work today. What a moron...

So now here I sit on a friday night at 9:00...they are both asleep. This party is kickin'...

ok...that's enough about that I guess. In the meantime, Audrey has been her regular cute self. She has upgraded her jumping... She has now learned to jump onto things and off of things...and over things. She and I went for a walk the other day and we walked farther away from the house than I'd ever taken her. I was so proud of how she was doing...holding my hand and being so sweet about it. Well, on the return trip she noticed the seams in the sidewalk. She decided that she needed to jump over them...ALL of them. Needless to say it was a long walk back...but I had nowhere to be so I was patient as I could be....although I did try to distract her whenever possible.

Today I prayed over Audrey's lunch as I was handing it to her. I try to remember to do this as often as I can. I always say the same thing..."Dear Jesus, Thank you for our food. Amen" Well, today she piped right in and added her own "amen!" Don't you know her Nana and Papa Pat were proud?! (they had brought our lunch and were there with us)

Some fun new words that Audrey has started using more regularly this week are octopus, shrimp and sea horse....oh, and garlic. She is also starting to repeat what we tell her to a little more consistently so that is fun... We were trying to teach her to shake hands tonight. She was getting the concept :) it was fun to practice...She was running all over steering her shopping cart around the kitchen and we'd stop her and stick out our hands and say "nice to meet you!" and she'd stick her hand in ours...

...and i'm very impressed at her driving skills. she can turn that shopping cart on a dime! At full speed!

Well, there are so many audrey things i wanted to post but all i can think about is ryan's yucky finger so i'm going to finish this later...

We've got wheels....

Well, we accomplished our mission. There is a "new" car sitting in our driveway. I believe this makes the 7th car in our possession since we've been married. Good grief...

Anyway, we have a 2003 Ford Explorer with very low mileage...and we got a great deal. (thanks to a friend of ours who works at a dealership) We test drove quite a few others and there was a truck that we had for 2 days that I had a MAJOR crush on....I was sad to let it go...but it wasn't worth $4,000 more for a truck that was a year older and had 20,000 more miles...but man, i liked that truck. oh well...saving money is more important and I'm proud to say that we stuck to our original goal. We have a more "roomy" car for ryan and all his sports/coaching needs...it has less miles than our acura and we owe less :) yay.

I'm sure I'll post pictures soon. :)

Audrey was so sweet today. She was so calm....she would just sit in the floor and play with her blocks. She asked for a hamburger for dinner (actually she said "munch") and I gave in...we had been in the car for 2 hours (driving Ryan to get his car and back during rush hour) and I didn't feel like making dinner...She also wanted "ogurt" and "ereal"....what a random dinner...but that's what she got...

maybe i'll post pictures tomorrow....

Fun stuff

Well, I'm tired and I don't have the energy to post much but I just wanted to remember these things...

Audrey's new favorite word is "awesome!" and she says it all the time. I have no clue where she learned it but it sounds so cute...she drags out the first half of the word so it's more like "awwwwwwww - some"

She also has some scrapes on her knee and on her feet from the shells at the beach. They have been a little slow in their healing process. I told her that she had "boo boo's" and mommy was going to kiss them. Well, now she says "boo boo" and just kisses them herself. Who needs mommy, right?

I don't know if you've noticed the one thing that has been glaringly missing from my posts....my husband. He is finally back home!!! Yay! I didn't want to post that he was out of town in case some looney toon was reading this... but he was in St. Petersburg again for a few days for a family wedding. We had decided a while back that it was best that I stay home with Audrey since we had such a big trip last weekend and she tends to best on a more regulated schedule...and I can't imagine taking her to a wedding. Anyway, long story short we missed him like crazy.

We have had to be apart more this summer than ever before and I didn't like it but the good news is that we have no plans to be apart on the calendar right now.

We are also in the process of looking for another car. We sold the Acura for lots of reasons....but now we don't know exactly what we're looking for...and we NEED a car. So pray for us :)

Off to spend time with the hubby...probably talking about cars.

munch!

Audrey has been cracking me up all day. This morning I was putting away laundry in her room and she was pulling out all her toys and "reading" her books...we were just talking (well, I was talking and she was playing) and having a good time.... then she ran to the stairs and said that she wanted to go down. I told her "in a minute" and finished putting away her clothes...sometimes I get one-track minded and I wasn't really paying much attention. I knew she was fine and playing but I wasn't focused on the details. When I finished with her drawers, I looked up and she had cleaned her room...I mean literally... she had put her books on the bookshelf, her toys in the toybox, her legos in the lego box and she was struggling to lift the lego box up onto her toybox shelf.... I helped her with the lego box and she then took off running and said "downstairs..." Who could say no to that? She has learned that mommy likes to clean her room before we leave it...and she did it on her OWN. I bet it never happens again....

I had to spend the morning on hold with Airtran canceling one of Ryan's flights and then on hold with David's Bridal working to get a size smaller bridesmaid dress for a wedding I'm in at the end of September...I no longer will have a pregnant belly to contend with. Anyway, Audrey obviously was paying attention to my phone habits. Later when we were playing, she picked up the cordless phone and tucked it on her shoulder and started walking around saying "uh huh, ok, uh huh, mmm, ok" like she was having this long drawn out conversation with someone...all the while she was still playing with her toys. I guess she learned to "multi-task" today!

She takes her nap almost immediately after she eats lunch which puts her going down around 12:30 or 1:00 on most days. I typically start talking about being sleepy and taking naps while she's eating to get her in the appropriate mindset...well, I hadn't really done that yet (i don't know why...distracted again I guess) and as I was scraping her last bite of yogurt ("ogurt" in the words of Audrey) out of the container, she said "night night." She was SO ready... of course she had a short nap b/c the doorbell rang but that's life. She can be such a light sleeper sometimes.

Yesterday she was asking for cereal all day. I feed her the Gerber toddler flakes...she loves them. Well, today she started asking for a "burger." How random...She gets them occasionally on the weekends with her Grandmommy and she got quite a few on vacation...but she's NEVER asked for one. In fact, she doesn't really ask for much food specifically until yesterday... Anyway, at dinner time I told her I would get her a burger. So I put her in the car and she was crying b/c she didn't understand why I told her she was getting a burger and then we were getting in the car and not the highchair. She cried most of the way there...and finally calmed down until she saw the little bag come into the car. She wanted it NOW....she is impatient like her mommy. So I got home and put her in the high chair (after she calmed down and said "please") and whipped out the burger...I unwrapped it in front of her and what do I find? Chicken. Great. I held it up to her and the tears started again! How can they do this to a 19 month old???? I was not about to drive back to Wendy's with a crying kid....so I did what any young mom does. I called my mom. :) She had mentioned that she might be coming over...so I thought she could grab one on the way. Her plans didn't work out though...but she had a miracle suggestion....she asked if I had any hamburger meat... DUH. I opened the freezer and we had 2 random frozen patties from not that long ago....I popped one in the handy george foreman, scraped the chicken and nasty sauce off the bun, added some cheese and ketchup and voila! HAPPY BABY! HAPPY MOMMY! How does wendy's mess up one tiny little burger? I didn't even order anything for myself...oh well. They'll hear about it...just not tonight. I'm not in the mood.

I cleaned out her toy closet today. Why didn't I do this sooner? I boxed up her toys that were from when she was a baby...rattles, stacking cups, etc...and filled up a huge rubbermaid tub to way overflowing. I can't believe I haven't really done this yet... She wasn't playing with those toys...just dumping them and then walking all over them. So, then I moved more toys to her room b/c it's easier to clean and contain them there and also she tends to play with things more specifically there and not just "dump and run." So now things are much more manageable down here. Everything always fit into the closet but now it's back to where she can walk in there again. I put away most of the stuff with small pieces like Noah's Ark so we can get them down and play and then put them away before we get out something else. Every day I learn something new as a mom...today I learned that less is more. She plays so much better with fewer options.

I also learned that she knows tons more animals than I thought....she will still only say brown, black, purple and orange when it comes to colors. She recognizes the others but those are the ones she says....but she sure knows what a koala, wombat, polar bear, lizard and a gorilla are. Who knows what a wombat is?? I guess that is what watching Baby Einstein in the car on a 10 hour road trip will do for you. I should have put in Hooked on Phonics. Maybe she would have read on the beach with me :)

Oh..and I almost forgot...the other night at dinner times she ran to her highchair and said "munch!" She was trying to say "lunch" because she was hungry.... how cute!

something to smile about

The last few days haven't been easy. For those that don't know, Ryan & I were told on Monday morning that our little baby no longer had a heartbeat. This has been a sad time but God's plan is SO much greater than ours and he knew what that little baby needed and also what we needed.

God also knew that I would need something to smile about. I got my pictures back from the beach on Tuesday and I think you'll see why they put a smile on my face. I couldn't decide which to post so I posted a ton of them. Hope you don't mind....I think you can see them even better if you click on them...

This was the view from our back door - and this is what happened when I opened it....she just took off toward the beach!! Who can blame her?? (don't worry - I snapped this picture and took off after her)

She just loved jumping in the ocean...and I mean JUMPING! Up and down, up and down.....

This picture is one of my 2 favorites....she would run from the water to climb the "sand dune" and then back again over and over again. She was worn out...eventually, she would just start running toward the condo on her own! She needed a nap and a snack!

She was starting to get a little more brave and would sit right at the water's edge. This is also a good picture to show what I mean by a "shelling beach" only I don't even think this captures the number of shells there. (sorry for the dorky shadow - i'm not a professional)

Throwing the sand!! This is a special treat since mommy doesn't allow this in our sandbox at home!

Running around...making her face with the scrunched up nose!

My favorite picture....she gravitated toward the sea grass. She would pull a piece and run as fast as she could and take on to "daddy" or "grammie" or whoever we asked her to. What a sweet little face!

Relaxing in the pool...

Another ocean shot....this was the last day and the only overcast day. The water looks darker than most beaches because of all the shells and the sand but it's not yucky.

She was getting very brave at this point....

Look at mommy!!

She is learning the right way to relax at the beach...sitting in a chair. Now if only she'd stay there for longer than 3 seconds....and read a book with her mommy. :)

Well, I can't believe that she is in the same bathing suit in all of these pictures. I had about 6 with us and she wore 4 of them I think....I used this one the most though b/c it stayed on the best and this hat has good comfortable straps so she doesn't pull it off. I'm so proud that we made it through our 2nd summer and she still hasn't had any sunburn to speak of. Yay for being a good mommy! You also may notice that the beach looks practically deserted. This is for several reasons...one being that Audrey wakes up very early and we would go to the beach at 8:30 or 9:00 most mornings and people are lazy down there :) Also, it was the week before schools starts for most people and it tends to be a little slower...and like I said, it is never crowded like a place like Destin or Panama so the beaches are quiet anyway....If I had taken pictures in the other direction you would have seen a volleyball net and people under umbrellas so I promise it isn't an empty beach. It would be no fun if you couldn't "people watch"....although my favorite thing is to get lost in a book with my feet sticking in the water! I read 3 books while I was there. That is what I call "relaxing."

Now we're back to reality...but, like I said, the pictures give me something to smile about.

there's no place like home...

...but I sure do miss the beach! We have been "vacationing" for about 9 days and had a wonderful trip. We left last Friday morning and headed to Sanibel Island, Florida, which is my most favorite vacation spot on earth. On the way, we made a stop off for a night and day in St. Petersburg to see a bunch of Ryan's family.

I have to brag on Audrey...she proved herself to be an excellent car traveler yet again. On both long stretches of the trip (today was 10 1/2 hours), she only needed to get out of the car once. We stopped for lunch in both directions for about an hour so she could run around and get her wiggles out. It really is too bad that more places don't have play areas for kids...especially right around the interstate. Fortunately, there was a Chick-fil-A at one of the exits...I can only take so much McDonald's...even if they do have an imitation Chick-fil-A sandwich now....

The week in Sanibel was great. We stayed in a 3 bedroom condo with my parents and my brother. I have been to Sanibel many times (seems like every summer since I was about 11) but I haven't been back since the summer before Ryan and I got married. It was SO great to be back! The beach is different than any others....it is a shelling beach so it isn't "white sand" as much as it is shells....and it is very uncommercialized. It is hard to find a "chain" anything on the island anywhere...there is a Dairy Queen though :)

Audrey really had a blast....We headed to the beach 1st thing just about every morning. She started to really understand what it meant when I told her it was time to put on her "swim diaper" and her "lotion." One day she walked up to me and said "hand" and reached to hold my hand, and then walked up to her grammie and said "hand" and grabbed her hand too...and proceeded to pull us to the back door. She looked up and said in this cute little emphasized voice..."outside!" Needless to say, we didn't wait too much longer!

Our condo opened right up to the beach, so when we opened the door she'd just run as fast as her short little legs could carry her all the way to the water. By the end of the week she was brave enough to sit in the waves and splash around. One day she flopped her whole body down right in the water almost like she was hugging the beach.

The first 3 days of the week she kept to her predictable schedule which was wonderful...and then she decided to cut a few teeth while we were there :) This shook things up a bit but we survived. Nothing that a little tylenol and trips to the beach/ocean won't fix!

Well, I should have some pictures soon. We haven't even unpacked the car....we're exhausted from the drive. I took most of the beach pictures on a waterproof disposable...I don't know what to do with myself since they aren't digital. I can't wait to get them back....

On another note, my ultrasound before we left was inconclusive again...I go back early this coming week so I'll keep everyone updated. So far I still feel pregnant so we're planning on everything being OK - I'm not going to worry unless I need to.

Off to the fun part of vacation....unpacking. yuck! :)