I Almost Thanked A Hero

Yesterday Maverick and I drove to San Diego to the Naval Hospital to check up with some of his specialists there that we saw last year. We had a long drive and were both hungry by the time we got there. We arrived a little early so I found a coffee shop outside and bought a piece of pumpkin chocolate chip bread and parked the stroller in a little courtyard between some buildings. While Mav snacked and drank his milk and I ate my bread, I noticed a Marine sitting about 20 feet in front of me with his side to me. He was wearing the same PT windbreaker that my husband has. I see Marines all day every day so what was different about this one? Well, he was in a wheelchair. He had a cast on his left arm. He didn't have his legs anymore. As I sat there watching him eat his Subway sandwich with one hand while trying to hold down the paper wrapping with his casted arm that the wind was trying to blow away with the other hand, I couldn't help the tears that welled up in my eyes. I couldn't help but imagine what happened to this young man who was no older than 25. I wanted to know his story and what he had been through. I wanted to know, did his vehicle run over that IED? Did he lose his friends? I wondered what he was thinking as he looked around that courtyard watching people sip their coffee, stroll their strollers and get money out of the ATM. Did he feel relieved to be back in a safe environment where there was no danger to him anymore? Or did he feel like screaming at every one of us for leading our normal little every day lives and walking on both of our legs never having experienced and never even being able to imagine what he's been through? To me at least, he looked like a guy who wasn't going to give up. Like he's going to go on with his life doing what he needs to do. "Adapt and overcome", as the Marines say. I hope that he is able to go on and have a happy life. I sat there wanting so badly to go over and say something to him, but I was already choked up just looking at him and thinking about him, that I was afraid I would embarrass us both by bursting into tears if I were to tell him "thank you". I looked at my phone and it was time to go into Mav's appointment. As I stood up, I saw a lady walk past the Marine while staring at him the whole time. I thought it was rude at first but then realized I had been doing the same thing only sitting down. As I started strolling Mav away from our park bench, I watched the lady turn around, go back to him, lean down and say, "I just wanted to tell you thank you so much for what you did for us." I didn't hear the rest of what she said because the tears were starting to pour and I had to quickly walk away. But I did hear him say, "thank you".  She did what I didn't have the guts to do and I'm very thankful for her. I'm still crying as I recall all of this but if I could go back, I would have told him thank you, tears and all. I'm sure he probably wouldn't have been embarrassed and I feel bad now for not doing it. So to you Marine, I don't know your name and I don't know your rank but I know that you are brave and you are a survivor and you are a HERO. And I am so thankful for what you did for me, my family and my country. I will never forget you and I pray that you have a beautiful rest of your life and that people will always be thankful for you and your sacrafice. Semper Fi.

What I Did During My "Lunch Break"

Just in case you wonder what us stay at home moms do to pass the time, here is how my "lunch break" went today. I didn't get a text from John saying he was on his way home so I took the kids out for some sunshine right as he was pulling in the driveway. I decided to just stay outside with them for about 20 minutes then I hauled everything back in. I fixed Mav a snack while I fixed Izaak's lunch. After I peeled and sliced the orange that Izaak asked me for, he told me he didn't want it after all. Mav is now fussing some more so I fix him something else. I heat up my pizza while John tries to tell me a story and after a couple bites I decide to try and give Mav some peanut butter on little balls of bread for the first time ever. John is annoyed and stops his story while I do this. I tell him to please keep going; I can multi task very well. I keep feeding Mav these balls of peanut butter bread when I finally realize, he's really not chewing and swallowing them that fast. His retarded mom forgot that he has an abnormally high-arched palate and it's ALL going up in there! I then proceed to dig it out and almost lose a finger. Mav is screaming now and I go make him a bottle. John now leaves to go back to work. He's been here an entire lunch break and I haven't gotten more than 2 bites of my lunch because I've been scurrying around so much taking care of everyone. I kiss him goodbye, give Mav the bottle, reheat my pizza and sit down at the computer. Only then I realize someone has been waiting for me to pay them on paypal for like the last half hour. I put down my fork and start working on that. But THEN...the doorbell rings. It's the exterminator. I forgot he was coming today. Duh! I then go to get the dogs out of the back yard to bring them in. I get one in the cage and go chase the other one. He proceeds to pee in the floor. I go to put him in the cage and the other one runs out. I'm now fighting BOTH of them to get back in the cage and didn't know Izaak was behind me and I ended up slamming his head into the door while wresting with these very large four month old Great Danes. I pick him up, kiss his head, put him down, clean up the pee, wash my hands, reheat my pizza and...I still haven't finished it because I just had to write this down before I forgot and I just wanted to let you people know...in case you were wondering...what it is I do all day. And that my friends...was only about an hour of my day. It typically goes from 7 am to 9 pm. Gotta love a stay at home mommy of little ones. :)

Slacking Already!

Well haven't I just been great at my New Year's "goal" of writing something every day?! Haha! It's so funny how I think of things multiple times a day to write about it...and then somehow, NEVER get to type it out!! One of the reasons could be that, ever since we've lived in this house (about 7 weeks or so now), our computer has been sitting on the kitchen counter. So every time I got on the computer, I STOOD in the kitchen. I guess I just didn't have much motivation to stand there and type. But yesterday, I had my husband unload the desk I bought off of 29palmsyardsales before Christmas (that yes, was still in the car!!), and bring it inside. I moved my bakers rack that was in this corner of the living room/kitchen just collecting dust, diapers, wipes, toys, mail, and looked really horrible, and put my desk in its place. No, I have not finished it yet (I plan on painting and doing it up pretty some day), and yes, it hangs out about 3 inches past the wall into the hallway, but I don't care!! We're only living here until August anyway, it's not a permanent situation. And if it means I get to SIT DOWN in the morning to have my coffee, check Facebook, and yes, hopefully BLOG, then I'll take it! And I still get to be right here in the middle of my kiddies.

As I'm typing this, Z and Mav are playing together in the kitchen. Izaak LOVES playing with his little brother. He loves making him crawl after him. He loves making him laugh! It's just so adorable and I'm so grateful that Mav has Z as a big brother to look up to. Mav's therapist told me that Izaak will be his greatest teacher. I know that he is going to continue to develop in a great way by following his big brother around!

Speaking of developing, Maverick has his first in-clinic therapies tomorrow! I'm anxious to see what this place has to offer him. 29 Palms is very teeny tiny and nothing, NOTHING like Dallas where we had all the big hospitals and nice everything! I just hope this place can really give him what he needs and really help him out. So for now he is going to start with physical and speech therapy, and possibly also start occupational therapy. This is going to be like a 4-6 times a week kind of thing PLUS once or twice a week in home therapy. I just really hope we can get this schedule figured out and that's it not too overwhelming for him or Izaak or ME!

I had considered putting Izaak in preschool during this time, but have decided not to do that. I really want to do preschool with him at home and although I never thought I would be, I'm actually excited about it! I just hope that I can keep up with his needs. Not to brag cause I know every mom thinks their kid is smart, but Izaak is a very, very smart little boy. He amazes me every day at what comes out of his mouth and what he knows and understands and remembers! And I feel like that's without me even really trying. So if I really put energy into it and help him learn all he can, I know he will love it, and benefit greatly from it! I really would like for him to be able to come to Mav's therapy with me. He's always been a part of his therapy sessions before and I'd like for it to be a family affair and for him to know how important he is to Maverick's life and how much he helps him be the best he can be! I just hope that he behaves himself. Haha. I think he will though.

Speaking of behaving himself, this is what he's doing this very moment.




And on that note...I better go entertain my poor dogs kids!

Exhausted

I'm exhausted. In just about every way I can be. We've lived in this house for 6 weeks and I'm still not done unpacking and putting things away. I try a little bit every day (when I feel motivated). But with John not coming home until 7:00 or later every night and 2 toddlers under toe every day all day, it's really hard to do and I just get frustrated. Today was going to be the day to REALLY get it all done. I was determined. But things did not go as planned. Kids were still under toe. And I cannot shake this tiredness. It's 6:30 pm and literally all I can think about is curling up in bed and watching tv until I fall asleep. Football is on in the living room and kids are fussing. Not a place I want to be right now. Also feeling a little guilty for feeding my (almost) 3 year old greasy cheese bread sticks for supper. Ah well. I cooked good wholesome meals all week so I feel pretty good about that. And I'm trying to decide if I want to try a new church tomorrow or just stay here and get more done on the house. *sigh* That's another thing that makes me exhausted...church hunting. We've done it our WHOLE marriage and NEVER found a church we could call home. That my friends, will wear you down pretty quickly. And I should mention that the churches here take up ONE page in the yellow pages. Yes...one. And that includes the other 2 towns down the road. This is a tiny place! So the one we're wanting to try (and the 4th one we will have tried here), if it doesn't work out, I'm really not sure what we'll end up doing.

Anyway, on a cute note, here's a pic I took of Mav as he was playing "shut the door in Mom's face" from the laundry room. He was getting such a kick out of it! That boy is making my heart happy lately with how much he's developing and doing new and exciting things! :)

New Years Resolution

I hate New Years resolutions. I just don't do them. So I guess maybe I will call this a goal instead. Hehe. One of my goals is to really get back to blogging (like I keep saying on here that I'm doing). It's taken me a long time to feel comfortable with sharing my stories/life/learning experiences/ups and downs/opinions, etc, etc with the world. But I've decided that, since I'm not a journaler (is that a word?), I really need to be writing down all this stuff SOMEHOW. I SO regret not keeping up with my life on paper or the computer. I'm very sad that I didn't document our lives in Okinawa or keep up with my boys growing and changing (I don't do baby books either). So I really really really want to do this for ME and if no one else reads this, that's perfectly fine. But I vow to make this my little personal journal. This will also be a place where I will express my frustrations, fears, anxieties, joys, hopes, regrets, opinions, ....everything! I am constantly thinking of things I want to write. Things I just want to get OUT THERE whether or not anyone is reading along. Some of these things that I've wanted to get out there include topics that are...sensitive shall we say? Controversial. Opinionated. And if you don't agree, then I'd appreciate if you just keep that to yourself. There may even be some posts that I close to comments because I HATE confrontation. Like I said, this is a place for me to let go and express how I feel. You don't have to read it. Thanks in advance. :) I love to educate people on things they don't know much about. I love to help people. I love to enlighten people and share with them new ideas. So I guess really, it might be more of that kind of thing rather than IN YOUR FACE! TAKE THAT! Haha. Or possibly I might even be too chicken to ever put the things out there that are in my head. We shall see how it goes. I'm going to *try my best* to post something every day. At least just something about my day so that I'll have something to come back and read years from now and I can look back and laugh and say, "Oh goodess...I'm so glad that part of my life is over". HAHA j/k. I also really hope to re-vamp my blog homepage. Ick. I can't stand it. I really need someone to make it over because I don't do that either. Well enough ramblings. Happy New Year everyone!

Early Morning Reminiscing

I've slept good since I got to Okinawa, but I just keep waking up at the crack of dawn every morning (after dreaming of sleeping in every day once I got here, hehe). After laying in bed awake for a while, I decided to go for a little walk and get some Starbucks (since someone has loaned my coffee pot to their shop for their Marines to use. This person's name shall remain unmentioned). Goodness the weather is so different here from Dallas, TX. It's not hot at all out there this morning but the humidity can almost choke you. Thankfully the evenings have not been like that since I've been here and we had a very pleasant, leisurely walk around American Village last night.


Anyway, so I got to Starbucks and even though they're supposed to open at 6:00 (and it was about 6:30), I guess they're closed today because of the holiday? Oh military base...why are you so silly? Just because it's labor day doesn't mean we the people don't want coffee!! :( So I decided to keep walking another quarter mile or so up to the "Shoppette". For you non-military-ers, this is like a convenient store, the only one of which is open 24/7 in case you need some milk at midnight, or in my case during my last pregnancy, an emergency late night run for sweet tarts. (Yea, I know. Weird). Here was some of my scenic little walk.

Once I got to the Shoppette, I felt like I had just stepped out of a sauna so I opted for a java chiller instead of my original plan of a piping hot latte cause that would have just been gross by this point. Yum! Good choice.

On my walk back home, I started thinking a lot about all the times I had walked that path. I was once a stranger here. Completely lost in this new foreign world. I walked that path trying to bring on labor with Izaak. I took him on walks there when he was a baby. I walked trying to bring on labor with Mav. I took them both on walks there after he was born. One of my very favorite views of this walk (or drive), is going down this steep hill towards the chow hall where you have a wide open view of the East China Sea. Depending on the time of day, the weather, etc, the water is always different colors. Sometimes there are white caps and other times it's very still. I just always, always enjoyed driving down that hill and looking out there and never ceasing to be amazed that I live on the East China Sea! I wish my boys could remember their time here and this place where they were born. But I hope that God has plans to bring us back here as a family one day.

So back to my reminiscing...I couldn't help but quickly tear up as I thought of everything we've been through over the past 3 years that we've been stationed here. Of course, I haven't physically been here for the past 5 months, but part of my heart has still been here. John and I have lived here the longest as a married couple. I became a mommy here. I grew so much as a person and a wife and then a mother. The ups and downs. The failures. The sad times, the happy times. The times I lost faith in God. The times I grew in my faith. The amazing, amazing, life long friends that we made here. I could never be thankful enough for them. You guys have been my rock.

Then on February 21st of this year, I left Okinawa, not knowing that I would never be coming back to live. I really had been getting excited that we only had a few months left here. I was ready to leave. It wasn't until after we were told we wouldn't be coming back, because of Mav's health, that I realized how much I missed this place. Having lived in Dallas the past 5 months, it's made me realized what a simple life we lived here. Sure, there were times I was about driven insane when the commissary was out of orange juice for the 3rd week in a row and Wal-Mart wanted to charge me $25 to ship a shower curtain which wouldn't be here for another 6 weeks. But...my family has been separated for almost half a year now and you know what? In Dallas I could go to like 20 different places within a 10 mile radius that had all the shower curtains I could ever want. And I realized....you know, that's just not what life's about. I've also realized that malls are overpriced and overcrowded and I really have not spent much time at all there. Target sure is convenient, no doubt about it. But I know now that I CAN live without it. I never thought I would say this, but I'm very thankful for these past 5 months. God has grown me in ways that I couldn't have grown without going through this. My heart has changed in so many ways. And just one of the many, many things I have come to realize is, "This world is not my home". I am not supposed to be comfortable here. It's incredible how much control I've been able to let go of. Maverick for example....well, that's for another post on another day. I'm thankful for these trials I've had. I feel like it's been more like 5 years of growth rather than 5 months. I'm so thankful the ways God has reminded me that I don't have control over anything and the ways I have been forced, in a good way, to hand everything over to him and just.....trust. I'm so thankful for the beautiful, amazing family he's given me that I just.....can't say enough about because there are only tears of happiness. And today I'm so thankful that God gave me the opportunity to come back to this place. To this beautiful island where my family began. To remind me again of all I've been given. To realize once more that this world is not my home, I'm just passing through. I am not supposed to stay in once place and get comfortable. I will keep going, keep moving, keep growing, keep learning, keep seeking his Kingdom as my ultimate destination. What beauty, peace, and ultimate rest and contentment is waiting for me there...I just can't imagine. Maybe God and I will have an early morning walk to the Heavenly Starbucks that never closes. Hehe ;)

P.S. Blogger won't let me post pictures right now for some reason so I will add them later!

Plagiocephaly, Cranial Bands and Insurance

Maverick developed a condition in utero called Torticollis. Because of this, he then developed Plagiocephaly that got worse after he was born from his neck always being turned to one side. When he was 4 months old, we were told he needed to wear a "helmet", or technically, a cranial band, to help improve the assymetry of his head. We were sent to Cranial Technologies to get a Doc Band. These people have been awesome and we're so grateful for them!




Last thursday Mav got his Doc Band off after wearing it for 3 1/2 months. He had significant improvements and we were told he went from having a severe plus plus head shape to a moderate/severe headshape. It was also recommended that he get a 2nd Doc Band. We of course want the very best outcome for our little man, but here's the kicker. We were told when we got his first band that almost in every case, insurance, no matter what insurance you have, will not cover it. We were so fortunate, or so we thought, that Tricare agreed to pay for the whole band!! It wasn't until a couple weeks ago I got a call from our insurance coordinator at Cranial Technologies telling me that Tricare still has not payed them and that she found out that it was the WRONG Tricare (West instead of South) that had agreed to paying for it. We will not know for another couple of weeks if South agrees to pay for it, but most likely they will not and then we will have to work on our appeal since it wasn't our fault that we didn't know it was the wrong insurance who had agreed to pay for it in the first place! Meanwhile, I found out yesterday that Tricare South denied our request to pay for his 2nd band. Unfortunatly, that means paying $2500 out of pocket, and if they don't agree to pay for the first one, that will be $5000. Although I am so glad they have covered what they have for all of Maverick's other healthcare costs, I find it unacceptable that insurances typically refuse to cover these bands unless it's post-surgical. And even though $2500 is a lot, that is with a military discount. The regular amount for civilians is around $3800. There are many many twins out there who require these bands due to conditions that happened while in utero (just like Mav) so those poor families are left with over $7000 worth of bills just for the first bands and over $15,000 if they need 2nd bands. This is completely rediculous and unacceptable in my humble opinion. I think insurance companies need to be a little more educated on this subject! We're not wanting our kids to wear these "helmets" so they look cool and we get tons of stares from people wondering what's wrong with them! John and I were told by the neurosurgeon that prescribed Mav's first band that if he did not have this, he could and would probably end up having a life-threatening surgery later in life that Tricare would have to pay for. So...does this even make sense to not pay for it NOW?? No it does not! Anyway, just thought I would do my part in Plagiocephaly awareness and in the mean time I will pray that one day the insurance big wigs will educate themselves and be on board with this. Thank you Dr. Klugh and thank you Cranial Technologies for caring about Mav and helping him have the best outcome possible!

(I wish I could figure out how to upload his before and after pics but I can't at this time)