Fireworks and a Birthday

This story begins on a warm October day in Georgia. I had woken with this metallic taste in my mouth that no amount of tooth brushing could wash away. I vaguely thought that this had happened before but could not quite place the cause. I thought I was getting sick or having some kind of allergic reaction to something. While unloading groceries from the van, I was consumed with pulling a memory from the fringes of my mind and solving this metallic taste problem. Finally it dawned on me; I was pregnant. It was the same taste I had in the early days of my first pregnancy. I had to wait about four weeks for the doctor's confirmation, but I knew life was forever changing.

My pregnancy was pretty uneventful. I had been fortunate to have had no pregnancy complications during my pregnancies and very little morning sickness. With Mimi my toothpaste made me sick. After trying numerous trial size toothpastes, I was able to tolerate the old fashion Crest toothpaste.

A difference during this pregnancy was not finding out the gender of the baby. With the boys I just had to know. During this pregnancy I was confident that the baby was a boy and I didn't need sonogram confirmation. I was going to use a beach theme for the baby's room and I only had a couple of baby items left from the boys' baby days so gender didn't really matter.

Doug and I decided to name our little boy Trey Ambrose. Trey for three because this would be boy number three and Ambrose for St. Ambrose. We had our original girl's name since the days of Dugger's birth and would use that on the off chance that we had a girl.

T-man was most excited by the thought of a new addition to the family. He cried when I told him that the baby would be a boy as he wanted a baby sister. (It's funny now because he and his sister fight like cats and dogs. Be careful what you wish for.) T-man would always touch my belly and talk to baby Trey.

Mimi was due mid-July but like the boys she decided to arrive on a holiday. I woke on the morning of July 4th with labor pains. I didn't want to have a long labor at the hospital but at the same time the hospital was about 30 miles from our home. So Doug and I headed off while my mom and youngest sister stayed home with the boys. On the way to the hospital Doug and I were trying to decide if we should change the baby's name to something more patriotic. Doug liked Patrick Henry and I liked Samuel. We never came to a clear consensus on the drive to the hospital. I figured we'd decide after we saw our baby boy.

Once at the hospital my labor stopped but the doctor decided to have me stay because of the long drive. So the doctor broke my water and labor resumed. Hard labor came quickly and the nurse delivered my baby girl as the doctor entered through the doorway. Surprise, surprise we had a teeny tiny baby girl. She was so tiny that none of the unisex clothes we had fit her. She wore a pink cotton onesie home from the hospital that was too big . My mom and I had to search the stores for premie clothes.

Because of my baby boy blunder, T-man would cuddle up to his baby sister and in his sweet adoring voice call her Trey and then say oops Mimi. As we settled into life with baby number three we've had quite the adventure. When Mimi was about four months old Doug was out of town and she had an asthma attack. Dugger who has asthma was four or five years old before he showed asthmatic conditions. In the evening after she coughed and coughed and I paced and paced with her, I broke down and called our pediatrician's emergency number. This is something I had never done before and was amazed when he called me within minutes of my leaving a message. I'm crying and telling him Doug's out of town. I even hold the phone up to Mimi so he can hear her coughing (although I don't think he needed to hear her to know what was going on.) In the nicest, calmest voice he told me to give her the nebulizer treatment that I would give Dugger, told me exactly what to do, and to meet him at his office Saturday morning. Dr. C. holds a special place in my heart.

Let's see, when Mimi was three she was attacked by the neighbor's dog who escaped into our yard. The boys beat the dog off with their plastic golf clubs as Doug charged outside to chase the dog away. I held her still and swaddled in a sheet as the emergency room doctor put stitches in her head.

Oh yeah, even though she was born on the Fourth of July she hated fireworks. She has an acute sense of hearing and the exploding sounds hurt her ears. She used ear plugs, put her hands over her ears, and I had to put my hands over her ears too. Within the last two years she has finally enjoyed firework displays.
Mimi has been a lot of fun too. She is a great dancer and loves to perform. She's a very good swimmer and loves the summer swim team. She finally realized that she has phenomenal mathematical abilities and loves math.

She also loves to read. If you know Mimi you know that she is never without a book. The year the movie Bridge to Terabithia was coming out she wanted to read the book then see the movie. Knowing what a sensitive soul she is, I cautioned her about the sadness of the book. I even broke down and told her that a child dies at the end of the book. She still insisted that she could handle it so I gave her my copy of the book. Several evenings later, I hear this boo hoo hoo coming from the hallway and she launches herself in my arms. Sobbing she says, "You told me someone dies. You didn't tell me it was Leslie." That was our first venture into more mature books.
Last summer Mimi decided to reread all the Harry Potter books in order to get ready for Part I of the last movie. Her personal goal was seven books in seven days. Now, the last several books in the Potter series are quite lengthy. She told me that she'd have to finish the first three books in less than three days so she could spend more than one day each for the last couple of books. She sat and walked around all week with a book open. She was mad at me because I made her clean her room and help with the basement clean up during her goal week. She didn't make her goal because Grandma and Megan, Mimi's cousin, came to visit and she didn't want to be anti-social.

In the summer we both read A Midsummer's Night Dream with plans to go see the play at the Shakespeare Festival. This year she read My Sister's Keeper for a school assignment. We had quite the discussion about the book and disappointment in the movie.

Mimi loves animals and constantly wants to add more to our home and school brood. She is particularly interested in a mouse or hamster. She is quite phobic about spiders, bees, wasps, etc. so I'm a bit surprised that she followed in her brothers' zoo experiences and is a Jr. Zoo Keeper. She's handled hissing cockroaches, snakes, and has dissected fish. She's even been stung by a bee in the goat yard.She performs on stage as a dancer but gets physically ill as an altar server at Church. She's the only one of my children that likes to go to Adoration with me in the wee hours of the night. She serves others with a smile and this summer she volunteered to help me teach my crafting classes and she has been very helpful. We've had a fast paced year with two graduations, a Confirmation, family crisis, her dad's illness, and college visits. With those ups and downs we have seen Mimi mature and rise to the challenges of growing up. Right now she is reveling in the fact that she'll be the only child at home this fall. As Mimi's grown we've had our share of emotional drama as well as interesting discussions and great fun. There are so many more things I could share about my baby girl but I think I've said enough for today. Happy Birthday to my amazing baby girl.

College Bound

No I'm not heading back to college for another degree. Although, I've had a few thoughts about that lately and am toying with an idea. Shhh don't tell Doug.

This is about my baby boy. He will graduate from high school soon and I wanted to share the adventures and frustrations of his college search. In his junior year, he went to a couple of college showcase nights to get a feel for many colleges across our state and the U.S. Let me tell you those recruiters are everything. My son who knew nothing of Michigan State, decided after one of these showcases that it was at the top of the list (right behind our local state university) of possible colleges to attend. Up to this point he had maintained a dedicated desire to attend our local college (where his dad and I work). We use to laugh about him living in the dorm that can be viewed from our family room window. We figured that his dad and I could post signs advertising the dinner menu in our front window for him. We'd get him home with those signs!

So in the summer between his junior and senior year we began making college visits. We thought we would be right in the game of college planning. We soon found out that we were running to catch up in the race for college selections and scholarships. The whole family headed out in July to go to East Lansing, Michigan. Doug, T-man, Mimi, and I attended high school preview orientation. It was my first ever college preview for high school students.
I was quickly sold on Michigan State. The head of academic advising was phenomenal at making you believe that this was the place to be. Everyone was friendly and helpful and things ran so smoothly. If you ever have the chance to visit the campus, I highly recommend it. It is simply gorgeous with mature trees, green grass, and a river running through the middle of campus. Sparty is not too bad either. On the academic side they offered a very nurturing college within a college program for natural science majors. When we returned home T-man immediately applied to MSU.
As the summer came to a close T-man and Doug made a few day trips to some of our other state colleges. T-man applied to several of these schools as well. After each trip, I'd ask how he liked the college. He'd say, "It's good." Do you think you'd like going to school there? "Yes." Do you have a favorite? "No."

In family discussions as Doug and I tried to get a sense of what our son was interested in studying and in turn evolving into a career, besides science. We began to steer him towards engineering. T-man has a strong math and science aptitude, is a great tinkerer, and is good at creative problem solving. With his interest in this new focus, we began looking at engineering colleges.

At this point (early October) I was done with college visits. My impatience and need for control was being held in tight reign while think enough already make a decision! Instead we headed off to the University of Illinois. I like the U of I about as much as I like the University of Florida. But I was good, so very good. I constantly reminded myself that this phase of our lives was not about me but about my baby. Off to the U of I we trekked. The nuturing feel good vibes of MSU were definitely not at the U of I and their arrogance was quite clear. Yet as we toured the engineering quad, I could see my son's eyes lighting up. It was hard not to be enamored with all the state of the art tools and research labs. Even I was getting excited. The concrete machine that stress tested concrete was amazing. He was definitely feeling pulled towards the U of I.

Not wanting to limit T-man's engineering options, Doug and T-man headed to Purdue. I didn't go on this trip, as someone has to teach those kindergartners. When T-man came home with a Purdue sweatshirt and stars in his eyes, I knew he was sold. But there was one last college to visit.

On my school holiday we headed to Southern Illinois Edwardsville to check out their engineering program. I had heard that it was a lovely campus nestled in a small town. All of that was true. SIUE pulled at my heartstrings as it reminded me of the Georgia campus where Doug and I worked for many years. Unfortunately they were a bit disorganized with their orientation and seemed unable to handle the large crowd. I was ready to leave without finishing the preview. As they did have admissions advisors available my son and I sought them out to find out what was holding up his acceptance to this school. The advisor was very helpful and looked up his file. The missing information was located in another file and they admitted him on the spot and began handing him scholarship information, explaining in detail how to apply for these school scholarships. That lifted our spirits. We spent the day getting the full tour. The engineering college was nice but lacked that wow factor of the "big" schools.

Now, Mimi loved the school and declared that she is going to go to SIUE and major in engineering. (In the summer it was USF and a major in Spanish.) Luckily we have time, lots of time. Although time seems to move quickly around here. It seems like yesterday that T-man was running around the Citadel quad with a cadet silhouetted in his shadow and I had a teary moment thinking of my four year old growing into that cadet and heading off to college.The time had arrived when T-man began receiving acceptance letters to most of the schools for which he applied. I thought we'd have a big college acceptance unveiling in December once all the college acceptance letters were received. The big schools have one big early admittance mail/e-mail day in December. Unfortunately T-man was crushed when he did not get admitted to Purdue. We were all quite shocked and it put a pallor over our anticipated reveal. It's so hard to see your child so disappointed. There was a good lesson in this rejection for T-man and his sister. Test scores are wonderful but consistently strong grades and service are big factors as well for these highly desired schools. I also reminded him that he had to have faith in the fact that there is a reason beyond what we can see for his future. He could take solace in numerous acceptance letters to a variety of colleges and universities (MSU included) as well as two scholarships offers to two of the colleges.

For me, not being able to keep this disappointment from my baby's life was painful. Unfortunately it also meant that a college selection would probably be a long time in coming. Finally Doug and I set a "signing date" of April 1st for T-Man. For most schools May 1st is the college and university acceptance deadline. He kept Doug and I guessing till the very end. We figured that it would be Illinois State or Southern Illinois Edwardsville. Up till the last moments, I still felt like giving a nudge for MSU.

Where's the school of choice? Southern Illinois Edwardsville and an academic scholarship!!

Now it's the last days of school, graduation, and celebrations. Oh yeah, and summer jobs for all of us (except Mimi) to help with college expenses.