The derby

When I was growing up I was never involved in the scouting program. So I never had the chance to master the art of the Pinewood Derby. Now that I have kids I don’t want them to miss out on this fun chance to learn cool things and to build and race a Pinewood Derby car. This is Garrett’s second year, meaning my second chance at making a car that can do decently.

As any good Dad would do, I researched the physics and dynamics of the race. What aspects of the car could I improvise and create better. My conclusion was that the friction of 4 wheels was the major cause of drag to the car. To fix it was to remove a wheel. I looked online for this common solution and found many people saying to raise one of the wheels so it doesn’t touch the track but none saying to remove the entire wheel. So my engineering mind went to work to figure out a cool solution. The problem though is that I’m not a mechanical engineer so I never studied in depth dynamics. So my limited exposure would have to do to conceive, design, and build a 3 wheeled car!



I presented Garrett with two options for the pinewood derby, 1) build a regular car and improve on what we learned last year or 2) build an experimental 3-wheeled car that may go faster or may just fly off the track! Without a moments pause Garrett said very excitedly “let’s do the 3-wheeled one!”

I actually did some calculations in my design to try and alter the center of gravity and position the weights to not only keep the car on three wheels but to have the weights positioned to improve the performance and hopefully speed down the track. The finished car was balanced and tested in our home. The result of the testing was that it went straight. The true test came when we went to the derby!



Let me just say that there are some serious Dad’s out there with real intent on winning. Garrett and I had a goal to win but our winning would come if the car stayed on the track and did decent. Plus I must add that even though I did the design work I let Garrett do cut, sand, and paint the car. I tried to get him involved with the whole process to make it his car. I must say that the cars at this derby seemed to be professionally manufactured by Dads intent on breaking land speed records. I mention that just because we had different goals with the race. When we submitted the car for weighing the leader said “I can tell whose Dad is an engineer!” It was kind of funny and Garrett looked at me and said he knows you’re an engineer!



The night of the race, the true test. Garrett was in the second group to race. I was so nervous. I must say running a 3-wheeled car down a track and having your son look at you in hopes we did it right is some pressure. I held my breath as it went down the track! It went smoothly down with no problems…3rd place. Four heats in total before the semifinals and the car made it in 3rd place each time and then 2nd a couple times. Success! The car stayed on the track and did very decently and I count it a win for us. We had a great time through the process and look forward to next year and who knows what kind of crazy ideas we come up with.

-- John

School money blues

I am so annoyed at the school. Does this happen to anyone else? Do they send home notes that say "We're making you a special present. Please send $6, and don't ask your child about it, it's a secret!" Now, I don't mind special secret presents. But I DO mind if you make me fork over money for it. I would be just as happy with something a LOT cheaper (i.e. in the school's budget). Especially when I just paid $12 for Garrett's field trip and $4 for Hannah's, and $6 for the social studies magazine subscription, and $6 each for them to join the lunchtime book club (book NOT included) and on and on and on. Now, I was a teacher, and I know how difficult it is to make choices for your students with a limited budget. But hello people! That's what a budget is for! If your budget can't afford it, think of something else to do rather than pass on the cost to the parents. I know a lot of teachers use their own money for school supplies and rewards, etc. but I also know that is NOT the case here. They solicit parent donations of toys, treats, stickers, etc. for rewards, and they solicit us whenever they need more school supplies, and solicit us to buy more books for their classroom.

**SIDE NOTE: We also have to pay a REGISTRATION FEE to the school district every year for our public school! It's $80 per child. I'm not going to go into details right now, but rest assured I fought that all the way to the Illinois Board of Education who told me if I don't pay, then (though they can't refuse to educate my child) the school district can take me to small claims court or put it into a collections agencey. When I asked what the money is used for the answer I got was "Why, to educate your child!" Um, what is our $10,000/year taxes used for then?**SIDE NOTE ENDED

I'm not a big gift giver either (not one of my love languages--I'm a quality time and acts of service woman). I tried ignoring the note, thinking to myself "I'm not paying for a present for myself that I don't agree with on principle." I even ignored the second reminder note with the due date (a week earlier) circled in red. AND the third note with the cost highlighted and the now 2-week-past deadline underlined TWICE. I toyed with continuing my passive-agressive stance and refusing to pay. But my sweet 6 year old, who had spent the weekend in the hospital, her I couldn't ignore when she said, "Mom, we're the LAST ones who haven't turned in our money. Should I just get it out of my piggy bank? Do I have $6 in there?" Then I felt bad. Though I shouldn't have to pay for a gift I didn't ask for, SHE shouldn't have to pay the school for it either. And they definitely should not be making her feel bad because she's the only one who hasn't paid.

I sent in my check today. It better be special.

The bad mom syndrome

I know most of us parents often feel like we're not doing the best job we can, and there even some moments when we feel we're doing a very bad job. I had one of those moments last weekend.

On Saturday evening, we all noticed that Hannah seemed to be dragging a little and we were thinking she was probably coming down with yet another cold/cough. By bedtime, she was coughing and wheezing and didn't look too good. I sent her off to bed thinking she would probably be better by morning. She was very excited to be involved in the children's program at church on Sunday. She had memorized her part, she was brave and ready to talk into the microphone. She woke up around 2 am coughing pretty badly again, but I went in to give her some water and sit with her for a minute, and she was instantly asleep again. But she was even wheezing in her sleep. Well, it can't be that bad if she can sleep, right?

She woke up again less than an hour later still struggling to breathe. I started using all my tricks. Steamy bathroom, rocking in the rocking chair (yes she is pretty big for this, but it's a good way to keep her upright, and yes my legs did fall asleep), she was still having problems, so I even tried the instant croup fix which worked on her as a baby, and on Garrett as a 5 yr. old--I took her outside to the cold night air. Nothing worked. Finally, I held her in my lap as I searched the internet for what might be the problem. She fell asleep again, so I laid her on the couch and I laid next to her. She continued to wheeze in her sleep, but again, she WAS asleep. So again, I thought, it can't be that bad. She wasn't running a fever. So I dozed next to her. She was pretty restless.

At about 6:30 am, I woke up John and made him take my place while I went back to bed to get a little sleep. When I came down about an hour later, she still looked horrible, and she was awake. The first thing she said to me was "I guess I can't be in the program" with such a sad wheezy little voice. So I called our doctor's on call service, hoping to bring her in around 8 or 9 because I knew they had clinic hours on Sundays. The doctor didn't even call me back until 9:30. He asked me two or three questions and then said to take her to the ER. I said, "Shouldn't I just take her to the clinic?" And he said "She needs immediate treatment to help her breathe." So I left the boys with Denise to get ready for church, I picked up John who was already at church for leadership meetings, and we took Hannah to the ER. She fell asleep again.

We didn't have to wait AT ALL at the ER. They took us immediately back and the first thing they did was check her oxygen saturation, and it was 87. If any of you don't know about sats, that is VERY BAD. When I saw that, I just started crying like crazy, hiding my face from Hannah. I can't believe I let her go ALL NIGHT like this. I should have brought her in 10 hours earlier! I collected myself pretty quickly (I like to think), and helped them get a nebulizer mask with oxygen on her. There were a million doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and I don't know who else, that came in and listened to her lungs and all of them exclaimed at how bad she sounded. The doctor said it was an extremely severe asthma attack. The nebulizer had albuterol, and then they gave her an oral liquid prednisolone. She wasn't really responding. They said if the couldn't get her a little more stable, they would have to admit her to the ICU. Then she threw up the prednisolone. So they decided to put in an IV, give her the prednisolone through there, and admit her to the ICU. She looked horrible. And scared, and didn't know what was going on.

We finally went to the ICU around 1 pm. She had been on the continuous nebulizer the whole time (except while traveling to the ICU). She looked a little better, but she had so many things sticking out of her. . .the oxygen meter on a finger, the IV in her arm, the blood pressure cuff on the other arm, the mask on her face, and three wires to her chest that measured her heart rate and respiration rate. I wish I had taken a picture, but obviously that was the last thing on my mind. By this time, she was pretty stable, but still obviously needed the continuous treatment. She had that until 6 pm. Eight hours! And then they gave her a ten minute treatment every hour until about midnight. In between, they had her on the oxygen going into her nose, which she HATED. She kept taking it out while I wasn't looking. I hate it too--I always try to refuse oxygen while I'm birthing but they always slip it on while I'm busy. Finally, I asked the nurses to keep it off and see how her oxygen was. They said, "I'm sure she'll need it while she's sleeping." But she didn't, hooray!

On Sunday evening, a bunch of Hannah's friends from church came to visit her, and they even brought presents that would help distract her. She wasn't really ready for reading or coloring, but she was feeling well enough to talk a little and listen to them tell about how the program went, and how they missed her. She had perked up a lot while they were there. After they left, I tried to settle her in to sleep. However, the meds they were giving her made her jittery and sweaty and not sleepy at all. We watched one more movie, then she finally fell asleep. Of course someone was constantly coming in to listen to her breathing, or to give her a treatment, or talk to me about her progress. This was at the rate of about two people per hour until about 1 am, when they changed her status from ICU to "floor status" which meant they could check her less often. So the rate slowed to one person per hour. Obviously, we got little sleep. Hannah is a very light sleeper anyway, so this was pretty horrible. Every time she was awakened, she would ask me questions and was being all chatty. When she finally would get back to sleep, 20 minutes later she was awakened again. Oh what a night! She woke up for good after her 5 am treatment. She was excited to look at her new books and coloring pages.

John took Monday off from work, saw Garrett off to school, took Kevin over to a friend's, then came to the hospital. I went home to sleep. The doctors said Hannah could probably come home that night. They had changed her treatments to every two hours, then to every three hours, then four. They took off all her monitors except the oxygen. They FINALLY took out the IV. Then they said she could come home. I was very nervous that they were handing over her care to me. I don't know anything about asthma, or her medications. But they taught me how to give her an inhaler, and said I didn't need a nebulizer at this point, and maybe this was just an isolated incident and she won't have any more asthma attacks. We can hope.

Anyway, we're home now and Hannah's gone to school. She seems fine, except she still coughs off and on. They said coughing is good though, it gets the phlegm out. Here is a picture of her on Monday morning. She looks great, doesn't she? Of course they had to tape the iv pretty forcefully so she wouldn't keep knocking it out.


If any of you have advice, I would love to hear it. I know I'm not a bad Mom, so don't worry about telling me that. We all just feel like that sometimes.

Kevin's story

I thought since Kevin's birthday is coming up, I would write about his birth. Since he is the most recent of my babies, it is probably the one I remember most clearly too. Of course, my memory ain't what she used to be.

As background, Garrett's birth was planned out naturally, but interventions snowballed into me having an epidural and the doctor using forceps and doing a 4th degree episiotomy. With Hannah, we were moving (actually John had already moved but came home for a week to be there for the birth and then pack up our house), so she was induced, I had an epidural, and again, 4th degree epi.

Finally, with Kevin, I armed myself with a lot of knowledge, research, and anecdotes. With the help of supportive friends, I was ready for my dream birth. He was due Oct. 27th, and I was sure I would be early, though I never had been before. Of course Halloween came and went, with no cute little infant to put in the pumpkin costume I bought for him. I pigged out on the kids' Halloween candy. Finally, over a week past the due date, he decided to make his appearance. I was lying down because I was going to go to a doctor's appointment and I was a little stressed out because I knew he wanted to induce (or at least do tests that would make them think they had to induce). When I got out of bed, I felt a little trickle, and knew my water had broken. I noticed there was a little meconium, but didn't get worried. I told the kids (Garrett was almost 6 and Hannah 3 1/2) the basics--they had been following along in the month by month magazine and knew all about the amniotic bag of waters. Luckily, I had planned to pick up John from school and take him and the kids with me to the Dr. so I could have some moral support. I went to get him, and the first thing the kids said is "DAD, DAD, Mom's leaking!" I still wasn't really having contractions.

So we all went to the Dr. but they said to just go to the hospital. We took our kids to John's brother's house. It was about 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. I tried to talk John into taking me somewhere to eat, but he was too nervous. And to tell the truth, I wasn't really hungry. I just wanted to postpone going to the hospital as long as possible. I couldn't think of anywhere I really wanted to go, so we ended up just going to the hospital. And I was a little nervous as well, since I'd never had my water break before, and I didn't like the color of the fluid coming out.

When we checked in, the first thing I had to do was refuse iv fluids. And it wasn't the last time I had to say no thanks. The next thing I had to do was refuse pitocin. I got hooked up to the monitors and they saw not many contractions (about 10 min apart--I could have told them that), and the baby was tolerating them well. They let me off the monitors around 5 pm and that was when my doula Becky came. I walked around a little, used a birthing ball, and generally tried to get the labor going. It didn't really work. At my first exam, I was at a 3, and around 7 pm I was still a 3, and he hadn't really moved down either. They hooked me up to the monitors again and noted some decellerations in his heartbeat. The meconium looked darker and thicker at this point. They went over a few options, and I finally decided on a tube to flush clean fluids around the baby, minimizing his chances of aspirating a concentrated amount of meconium. This, of course, meant that I would have to stay in bed. It also meant that it would slow down the contractions even more. The Dr. promised me that he would let me try it naturally for as long as it was safe for me and the baby. Around 9 pm, he came in again and said he had been watching my monitors and the baby's heartbeat was slowing down way too much. While he was talking to me, I had another contraction, and the heartbeat slowed down under 80. The Dr. said, "Two more like that and we're rushing you to and emergency c-section." I started sobbing, and his heartrate kicked up quickly. I agreed to have pitocin to see if I could at least get him out vaginally before they sliced me open. I made the Dr. and nurses PROMISE to start me on the very lowest dose, and to turn it off once I got to a 5 (with my other two kids I went from 5 to 10 in less than an hour).

So they started the pitocin. And BAM! It really kicked me into high gear. Becky did some pressure points on my feet and I could feel the baby moving down. And it HURT! I made them check me at about 10:00 and I was at a 5/6. They turned it off, but boy, it did not feel like it. The contractions were on top of each other, barely letting up at all. I asked Becky and John both to check and make sure the pit was off, because I couldn't believe it. Toward the end, I think if I could have caught my breath enough to talk, or had any coherent thought, I would have asked for an epidural. Maybe. The baby's heart rate continued at a semi-acceptable rate, though the decellerations were lower than they would have liked. At about 11 pm, as one contraction ebbed, I suddenly felt very nauseous. "I feel sick," I gasped. John patted me on my shoulder, thinking to himself (probably): "Of course she feels sick, she's about to have a baby." At my words, however, Becky sprang away from the bed, found a bedpan, and practically tossed it to John right as I heaved in his general direction. I threw up for the next few minutes, and let me tell you, it is NOT FUN to throw up while you are having contractions. Nothing is fun when your in the last stage of labor, I guess, but throwing up just makes it that much worse. Meanwhile, Becky was positively crowing: "You're going to have the baby soon!" And I groggily remembered that heaving is a sign of transition. She called the nurse in.

Sure enough, a few minutes later I was curled up in as tight a fetal position as I could be with my big belly, moaning with some major pressure. They checked me and I was 10, ready to push. I had been lying on my left side, as that seemed to be the best for the baby's heart rate. I pushed on my side once, but the heart rate was dipping super low again, and they were serious about getting him out FAST! So up I sat, pushed a few times without holding my breath. They kept telling me to hold my breath, but in my perfect birthing plan I didn't want coached pushing, and I wanted to push on my side without holding my breath, so that the baby would move down a little more slowly and I wouldn't need an episiotomy. Becky knew all this, and knew all my concerns about interventions. During a break after my 3rd or 4th push, the dr. said "Push again between contractions." I said "I can't" and he snipped me a tiny episiotomy (it didn't even need to be stitched later) I felt it, but it was only a tiny pinch. Then I heard Becky's voice quietly say: "Lajuana, the next one you have to hold your breath and really push him out. NOW." I learned later that his heart rate was dipping in the 30's for the pushes and everyone was really freaking out. I had no idea, because I was really in the zone. Anyway, after Becky said that (I trusted her more than the nurses who didn't know me), the next push I held my breath, really put my all into it, and out he popped!

They took Kevin and sucked him out real good to make sure he wouldn't aspirate the meconium. He looked good, though. The Dr. showed me the placenta and we saw that the umbilical cord that attached to the placenta was really thin. He said he'd never seen anything like it. But he didn't seem too malnourished; he was 8 pounds, 1 ounce. Of course, he was very late and I was expecting him to be over nine pounds. Garrett was 8 lb. 11 oz. Anyway, the pediatric nurses came later and took him to the NICU because his blood sugar was extremely low and they were afraid he would have seizures.
He stayed in the NICU for a few days, and I stayed with him. He was HORRIBLE at nursing, sometimes taking over 30 minutes to latch on. But it's not like I had anything else to do in the hospital, so why not spend all day trying to get him to nurse? Later when we brought him home, it was a little more frustrating, but never really bothered me that much. Just time consuming. By the time he was 2 months, he was pretty normal.

Anyway, the main thing I noticed about having a non-medicated birth (besides the pain) was the recovery time. I swear I felt absolutely fabulous the second Kevin came out. I remember when the nurse brought me some ibuprofen shortly after the birth, I asked "What is this for?" and she said, "You'll be feeling pain soon, this will head it off." I said, "I'm feeling fantastic. If I'm hurting later I'll ask for it." But I never needed it. When the adrenaline/hormonal high wore off, I was still feeling great. I felt back to my normal self (better than my overdue pregnant self) by the morning, except for the heavy bleeding. Which is good because I spent a lot of time in a not-so-comfy chair in the NICU.

So I still have a dream of a perfect birth. I don't know if it will happen or not, since I'm gettin' up there in years, and we're not sure if we'll have any more children. Here are some pictures of my baby at 2 months, 3 months, and 8 months.



























And here's one from just today, my big three-year-old: