Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Baby: Here ya go

So, hi. I'm here. Sorry, and all that jazz.

My grandpa's doing pretty well. He was in the hospital again on September 12 with an infection of some sort, but it wasn't nearly the scare we had last time. My mom called that morning and let me know he was back in, but assured me he was fine. My sister proceeded to kind of freak out, because she hadn't spoken to Grandpa since before she moved to Florida. She's been really homesick, and she felt like she needed to get home just in case something happened to him. So she was texting me that entire day and was kind of a wreck. Grandpa's been out of the hospital since then, though, and feeling much better.

That evening I got another phone call from my mom. She was leaving Genesis West where she had been visiting my grandpa, and she was heading to Genesis East. She had received a call from my dad telling her to get over there immediately, because my Aunt Kelly (dad's brother's wife) had passed out and they couldn't find a pulse. So my poor mom headed over there. She kept me abreast of what was going on via text. Eventually, it was determined that Kelly has had a ruptured brain aneurysm. She had a severe brain bleed, and was flown to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, with little to no hope that anything could be done to save her. The next morning, five minutes before I went into court, I was told she has passed away. She was 60 years old.

My dad is Number 11 of 12 kids. I have a lot of uncles and aunts, and countless cousins. But I'm close to almost all of my dad's siblings. Bob, my dad's brother and Kelly's husband, is particularly close to my dad, mom and my sister and myself, and, as such, so was Kelly, and their daughter Tanna. We grew up more like sisters than cousins. My sister and I spent our summers at their farm. Kelly would pick us up and we'd go out there to ride horses, play in the barn, or we'd run errands with her. The three of us took music lessons from the same lady one summer, so Kelly shuttled us to and from those. Kelly was a beautician, but also a farm girl. She taught me to ride a horse, and she taught me to apply a mud mask, and she immediately identified that I enjoyed the latter more than the former. I have a distinct memory of being inside her house while she gave me a "spa day," while my sister and Tanna rode Tanna's pony, Dinah, around and around the house. Kelly was good at figuring people out, and she was great at making them feel comfortable no matter what.

I haven't spent much time with Kelly, Bob or Tanna as an adult, but the Carters are a family who, even if you don't see them much, when you do, it's as if no time has passed. We all get together and have a great time. Losing one of us is like cutting off an arm, even though there are so many more. Kelly was a dominant arm, and even though I didn't see her often, I miss her. Her absence in our lives is palpable, and our family is devastated. Tanna, her daughter, lost her mom at the age of 32. There's never a good time to lose your mom, I'm convinced of that, but 32 is far too young. Your mom still has tons to teach you when you're 32. Luckily, Kelly did get to see Tanna get married this past year.

My sister drove home for Kelly's funeral. It was great to see her and the girls. But they left again. Halle, her oldest, who is 5, cried and screamed, "I want to stay with my family; I don't have any family in Florida. I want to stay. I'll miss you Grandma!" That's when my dad finally burst into tears. It was awful. Watching them go was heartbreaking. My sister didn't want to go either. She wants to come home, but she needs a job here, obviously, and she's working on that. Her ex-husband, Paul, moved to North Carolina, into his parents' house, when Nikki moved to Florida. He says he moved there to be closer to his girls. And he is. But he's still 8 hours from them. Now he's complaining that she's moving back here, and he moved to NC for nothing. I think that's a cop out. He did what Paul typically does: He made a half-assed effort that really benefited him more than anything, and now he's holding it over Nikki's head and looking like the good guy. I would be more inclined to be on his side if he had moved within an hour or two of the girls, but 8 hours? Give me a break.

The evening after Kelly's funeral Brian got a phone call that his grandma was in the ICU at Genesis West. She had had a seizure and they couldn't wake her up. Apparently, there are two parts to the ICU: Part 1: You're probably going to die, but we know what you're going to die of. Part 2: You're probably going to die, and we have no flipping idea why. Grandma Kilby was in Part 2. Wonderful. Since I'm a super-wonderful, sensitive, compassionate wife, my response was, "Well, she's just going to have to stay alive, because I'm not going to another fucking funeral this week."

Luckily, Brian's not terribly close to his grandma, so he was all, "Fuck, neither am I!"

They've since figured out that she had a heart attack. They don't know if the seizure caused the heart attack or the heart attack caused the seizure, but once they figured out that a heart attack had been involved, they moved her back to the slightly less scary part of the ICU. She was there for a bit, and has now been moved to a regular room in the hospital, so things are getting better. She's a 75-year-old woman with Alzheimer's, though, so this is really a when, not an if, just like my grandpa.

So anyway, that's what's been going on. In the meantime, Ellie's vocabulary has gone through the roof. She speaks in full, clear sentences now, and will have an entire conversation with you. She can count to 20 and say her ABCs. She follows directions, can soothe herself to sleep at night and at naps, and is interested in potty training. She hasn't quite gotten a handle on colors yet. Most things are blue or pink, and, God help us, the child STILL HATES WASHING HER HAIR. She refuses to lie down in the tub. She also refuses to look at the ceiling, so we end up dumping water on her head, which pisses her off so she tries to climb out of the tub. It takes both of us to wash her hair because one of us has to hold her down. It's insane. No amount of coaxing has yet to convince her that we are not, in fact, trying to drown her or waterboard her in search of information about Al Qaeda's next move, but rather are JUST TRYING TO WASH HER FUCKING HAIR. I don't even know what to do anymore.

On a much happier note, we had pictures taken while my sister and her girls were in town. Enjoy!