Iowa: a first

Rainbow near Grundy Center, IA

I'm half-Iowan, if that makes sense. My mom was born and raised there, and I grew up there too, partially. We get back often - a few times a year - because of these roots, and to see the people we love who are still there.

First stop, three hours in.

Squash face

My latest trip to Iowa was a first though. I went there alone, with my two boys. I have a small clan of  good, old friends from the Iowa days who I wanted to see. My friend Malissa now lives in Washington and was going to be back near our old hometown for her sister's wedding. She e-mailed the other three of us to see if we could make it out. I am the only other wild card, being second-furthest away in Michigan, while Teri and Deborah both live in Iowa. At first I wasn't going to go. I had just been there with my family the month before, and I knew my mom couldn't come with me this time because of a surgery she was scheduled to have. So I dismissed it.

But then the e-mail responses from my friends continued to come in, saying "I'll be there!", and I thought to myself, what's stopping me from going alone with the boys? Deborah comes to Michigan alone with her three kids to see her sister all the time. I felt inspired by her. If she could do it, so could I. Thirteen hours each way? Meh. It was do-able.

Blue skies and big trucks

Rain over Minnesota

Windmills were a common part of the landscape

My little creeper. And my glasses are crooked.

Last stop - relief from one of Theo's two meltdowns.

So I did it, it went amazingly well, and I was inwardly a tiny bit proud of myself. I feel like I could do it again sometime, no sweat.

One major thing that helped were two great little kids' albums by the 90's band, They Might be Giants. We checked out both the ABC and 123 records they had made from the library (Jude is currently obsessed with letters and numbers), and both Jude and I were singing along with every word a few hours into the journey.

Also, the big sky and massive cloud formations were incredible. I have probably 20 photos on my phone of the various stages of storms rolling in and out, and it was breathtaking.

Lastly, it helped that we stopped to stay overnight with my lovely grandparents eight hours in. If we hadn't been able to do that, it probably would've been a deal-breaker on taking this trip. What ended up being a fifteen-hour journey would've been a wee bit too much to ask of my small-ish boy-children.

Jude with his Bedstemor ("Grandma" in Danish)

Hanging out with my friends was so great. There's always that catch-up period, but a few hours in we were talking over each other like we always used to do. My friend Deborah's sister, Heather, said to her, "Do you realize you guys are constantly interrupting each other?" We laughed and agreed that we still manage to hear what everyone else is saying. We're just excited by each others' presence, I guess.

Seven of the ten collective offspring

Deb's Jackson with Theo

I sadly did not get a photo of the four of us together, but I did snap a couple of our multitude of offspring. Malissa has four, Deb three, Teri one, me two. We tromped around Sioux Center, Iowa with our ten collective children for an afternoon, hitting the park, a huge open space in the mall (because it rained for awhile), and a coffee shop.

We're seriously discussing having our next reunion in Las Vegas, a destination that usually wouldn't interest me, but with these women (and maybe without the kids), I wouldn't say no :)

Good Old ER

Oh, ER, the hours we have spent within your walls. Especially after Theo's recent respiratory episode, where we hit a record time of 1.5 days and most of two nights. Ugh.

That is the furthest I'll take my complaints though. There are many children, including two within our own circle of friends and family, who have spent horrible amounts of time in hospitals, and a chunk of time here and there that we have spent in this sterile, worrisome location is ridiculously small by comparison.

When we do go there it's because of our boys' "reactive airways", which translates into intense wheezing and breathing difficulties after colds, exercise, etc. Jude was in the ER three times one year for it, and Theo was inducted for the first time last week. Jude continues to be on a daily medication for his asthma that we now use only seasonally, as well as an inhaler when his wheezing and coughing spike. Chances are Theo will be on the same thing(s) within a year or so, considering the symptoms we've seen in him this past month.

Sleeping on my chest, finally, after a breathing treatment

Being one of those types who prefers natural remedies, especially with my children, this bothers me sometimes. We tried other things before putting Jude on a daily med. But the importance of my boys' ability to get oxygen into their lungs trumps all that. We still use natural remedies for congestion (an olive oil and eucalyptus rub and humidifiers), but when they start to have any serious trouble breathing, out come the big guns. When you're at a turning point, eucalyptus oil is for kids whose colds don't land them in the hospital.

Okay then, moving on...

A few great things came out of last week's experience. First, we all got to see Theo in a tiger hospital gown. Ack! Amazing.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B (hair shot)

Exhibit C ("Nurse?")

Second, unless he was getting "booger-be-gone" or albuterol breathing treatments, he remained his happy self, blabbering endlessly, playing in his hospital crib, flirting intensely with the nurses (see video).

Speaking of flirting, the third great thing was that the ER had a little red welcome wagon in which Theo and I wore a path around the hospital. In our boredom, it was one of the only ways we could escape our tiny room.

I can barely describe how he looked perched in this wagon, in his hospital gown with his fuzzy hair standing on end, without becoming breathless and flushed. I'm fanning myself right now.

Whenever we rolled past a nursing station there was mass swooning and cooing from the lady-folk, mildly bored on their night-time shifts. Theo LOVED that, of course, and amped it up a bit by head-banging and yelling at them with a crazed, elated look on his face. 

I guess the last good thing that came of this little episode is that we were given an excuse to purchase a Nose Frida, the Snotsucker. Using it involves the parent placing a clear nozzle into the baby's nostril and actually sucking from the tube attached. The boogers flow freely (and visibly) into the clear nozzle from the power of your own breath. Mind-blowing. (Note that boogers do not go into the parent's mouth. There's a filter!)

Nose Frida has actually become a verb in our house, and though Theo hates it, the rest of us kind of look forward to it, to be honest.

"So Theo, did you just get Nose-Frida-ed?"

"Did you Nose-Frida him yet today?"

So, we're home now, he's still a bit wheezy, and we're praying we don't have to go back this week. Somehow I would find that embarrassing, though I'm not sure why.