Week 32

I'm still keeping all of my old photographs in a cardboard Huggies Diaper Wipes box. How sad, right? They're all crammed in there, piled on top of each other, some getting ruined I'm sure. I need to get actual photo storage boxes. Every week I have to pull them all out to find the picture I want, and then the pictures start to pile up inside and on top of the scanner, because I don't want to go back to the Huggies box to try to put them away, knowing that they're going to slide right off of the top of the pile anyways. What I've started doing, is pulling out multiple photos at once, and planning ahead. There are so many images held captive in that little box, I have so many memories to choose from. But even with the choice of a thousand memories- I still have my favorites, and I still dig for them.


When Eleanore was born, I lived alone. Christopher was going through his Air Force Tech School at Sheppard AFB, and wasn't allowed to live with me. I had moved from Washington to Texas (would you believe I drove across country, while 6 months pregnant, with my mother in law?), and I lived in a small ghetto style apartment, furnished with the most uncomfortable "rustic" furniture (the landlord's words, not mine)- completely alone.

About two weeks after Elie was born, while I was in the middle of completely losing my mind, just as postpartum depression was starting to settle in- my very best friend in the entire world, Kalii, came to visit.

Kalii and I met in our high school PE/Dance class. She dropped out of the class not too far into it, and since we didn't have any other classes together, we never ran into each other. We ended up having a study hall type class together the next semester, and while we weren't best friends at the time, we did sit together and occasionally crack jokes about things that weren't actually funny. A year or so later, we bumped into each other at a show at the Roseland Theater in Portland, both of us had gone alone, and from that day forth, we pretty much never left each others side. I will never be able to describe the connection that Kalii and I have. I trust her with my life. I trust her with my children's lives.

Kalii is the godmother to both Eleanore and Charlie, and will also be godmother to the bean, after he/she is born.

Kalii has come to visit us in Texas more than anybody else. She came when Elie was born (pictured above), she came for my first art show, and she came last year for my birthday.

I have a hard time talking to her without crying. I miss her more than I miss my own parents. Other than Christopher, I'm closer to her than anybody I've ever known. I can tell her anything. We've only fought once, and wouldn't you guess, it was over a boy- but not in the way that you might think. We can sit and watch movies like Homeward Bound together. We can laugh over nothing, so hard that we cry and make our stomachs hurt. She loves me and my family the way that a sister would. Shes more than a friend. Shes my best friend. My true Bff. The most beautiful, and strongest woman that I've ever met. Nobody else will ever compare.

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Want to play along? Share a picture of your best friend with us? Maybe just a friend? Or if you don't have an old photo that goes along with this weeks theme, share any old picture with us, the theme is totally optional anyways. You don't need to have a blog, you can post your Flashback on your facebook, twitpic, myspace, wherever. Just make sure to add your link to the list below, and add our link to your post. You can use our fancy "Flashback Friday" button (which can be found wayyyy down at the bottom of our page, below all of our posts), or you can do it the old fashioned text link style- its up to you. The more players, the merrier! Can't wait to see every ones flashbacks this week!

Unexpected Road Trip

Wish us luck, friends! Today we are off to Cooks Children's Hospital in Ft. Worth, Texas, to get our son the medical attention that he has been waiting for. We had made an appointment for late April, the earliest opening they had (they're booked through June!), but with his seizures increasing from one or two a week, to 20 a day- we need to be seen sooner. Yesterday after a series of emails with a very helpful lady named Carrie (friendly people are rare these days, and I'm truly grateful for her assistance), we got an appointment for today, at 3:15.

For more information on where we're going, the Pediatric Neurology department, click here. I expect in the future we'll be spending a decent amount of time in the epilepsy monitoring unit, probably not this specific trip, but- soon. If you'd like to see more about that, click the link from the last sentence, and scroll down. You'll find the button to the video on the left hand side. The unit looks comfortable (about as comfortable as a hospital can be) and professional, we're very happy to be taking our son there.

We're anxious to get there. We're anxious to be seen. We're anxious to get answers. But like I said in a previous post about all of this... we need to take it one step at a time.

Slow down. Deep breaths...
This is only the first step.

And we're off!