Norah

This was originally supposed to be posted on Norah's first birthday, which was like three weeks ago now. Unfortunately, life kind of happened and we got busy. So with today being National Siblings Day and all that jazz, I figured now would be as good a time as any. Better late than never, right?

It was the middle of March 2015.

Mel was pregnant. Very pregnant. And we were getting antsy. Her due date had come and gone without any kind of great fanfare. At one point Mel's doctor changed the due date by like three days. He still didn't think this would be that late an arrival for baby number two, and from knowing what we know about how childbirth goes the second time around, I wouldn't say we were overly concerned about how long things were taking. So we went ahead and packed up some hospital bags so that way as soon as things started to happen, we'd be ready to go.

And then, we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited

And waited some more.

And some more.

And then waited some more after that. Five days later, still no baby.

And then at about 10 PM (Editor's note: I'm sure as the years go on the time and weather conditions for this tale will alter dramatically. By 2030 it may be almost midnight in the middle of a hurricane) on the night of March 20th, Mel started having contractions. Yes! It's time. We woke Maddie up, dropped her off at my parents, and knowing this would be one of the last meals we would eat outside of a hospital room for a little while, did what all married couples on the way to the hospital to have a baby do and stopped to get some Whataburger. It was delicious, I'd be lying if I didn't say that the fact that we would be welcoming a brand new baby girl into our arms soon made it taste that much better.

Then we got to the hospital. This is where the fun begins.

Our regular doctor was not on call this particular weekend, and since Mel wasn't dilated enough yet to to start doing some pushing or anything - guess what? More waiting. All the while the contractions she was suffering through were getting closer and closer together.

But, nope.

Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Do not get a baby.

Before I go any further, I should issue a brief side commentary about things at this point: As you can imagine, this sucked. Like this really, really sucked. This really sucked for both of us, but mainly for Mel. I'm not even exaggerating anything by telling you that I've never felt a more terrible amount of sympathy for a human being than I did for her that night, in that examination room, waiting for something - anything - to happen.

Now, it's after midnight. And we're both tired. Tired of nothing happening, tired of looking around at the same stupid room we've been in for awhile now, tired of the clock on the wall seeming to tick by slower.......and slower.........and.........slow........er......with every second.

Finally, after calling the on-call doctor for the weekend and conferring, a nurse finally came in sometime after 2 o'clock in the morning to tell us "sorry, there's nothing we can do for you tonight" and sent us home.

Really.

Just like that. Welp, see ya later.

On what I like to refer to as the "Drive Of Shame" on the way home, we needlessly stopped at a Walmart in the wee hours of the morning looking for some pain relieving medication in hopes it might ease some of Mel's pain. Yeah that didn't work out too well.

Back at home now, tired and angry and over emotional about the world, we both tried to find some way to get some sleep. More importantly, Mel had to find a way to get some rest with contractions occurring every two minutes.

Then finally, at about 6 AM the following morning we both decided, screw this crap. We're going back to that dang hospital and pushing out a baby. Today.

Thankfully, at this point all systems were go, and in early afternoon - we were blessed with this tiny little bundle of joy you see below:

So uh, hey we have two kids now! Both of them technically toddlers! How is this possible?

Its been said that going from a one child to a two child house causes you to change your defensive alignment: You go from a zone defense to man to man. This is very true in our case, although with the schedules we both have at times it's hard to even play a solid defense when Maddie and Norah are at their worst best and one of us are not.

A day with both of these girls up and on the go can be..........I don't know.......you pick an adjective. Exhausting. Frustrating. Hilarious? Yes, all of the above. But one of the biggest joys we get in life is from watching these two little girls learn, play, laugh, and grow up together.

Happy belated birthday, little girl. You are such a blessing to all of our lives.

Norah

So it has come to my attention numerous times that I haven't blogged about anything in awhile. For that I owe you, the reader, my sincerest apologies. Truth be told we've been kind of busy...I work sort of weird hours now that give me free mornings to be a Dad and do whatever I want or need to around the house, and then after going to work in the afternoon and coming home at night all I really want to do is go to sleep. Occasionally that occurs after watching sports or an episode from a past season of 24 which we have been getting caught up on thanks to our local library. 

Where was I? Oh right, the main part of this all. We have two kids now. 

Meet Norah Rebecca Vittas. 

Norah was born on a Saturday, March the 21st, after one hellacious night of going to the hospital and sitting around for awhile before ultimately being sent back home because she just wasn't ready to come out, and then enduring what seemed like the longest 20 minute drive in the history of the world to get back home only to return to the hospital the following morning with one very pregnant wife in a boat load of pain. Seriously you guys, there was so much cursing. Such a large amount in fact that I almost considered saying something to Mel in an effort to calm her down. I quickly decided that would most likely not be in my best interest to do so for fear of her getting up out of her hospital bed, IV's and everything, and punching me through a wall. But she made it. I love her, and I'm very proud of her for enduring that and giving me one more beautiful daughter. 

Maddie got to meet her new little sister the following day up at the hospital. Her initial reaction could best be summarized with a simple "Meh." Not really that interested at all. But since that first week Norah has grown on her in a very big way, and now Maddie's always trying to give her kisses, feel the tiny baby hairs on her head, and just stare at amusement at this new little person. Lately she's started "helping" Mel out by handing us her empty bottle to put in the sink and such. 

"Oh, watch out for Maddie!" you say. "She's going to get so jealous!" you say. Although Maddie can be a stubborn little toddler at times and it's definitely a possibility of happening, we've also been blessed to have a very affectionate and loving kid, so if she's going to get all jealous on us hopefully it's only because she hasn't gotten a chance to hug and kiss her sister enough. 

Which brings me to my next subject: The hearing test. We tried to not make finding out what the results of Norah's test would be a big deal, and I think for the most part we accomplished that. Seeing how Maddie has been doing learning to overcome her hearing impairment has been insightful for us, and also gave us a little sense of knowing what to expect with that sort of thing. So I can't really say we would have been ready for anything, but we kind of were preparing ourselves to be. 

So Norah failed her first test. Okay, fine. Tomorrow is another day and all that. Sometimes newborns fail their first hearing test and it ends up being nothing. Of course, Maddie also failed her first test and we all know how that turned out. But then, Norah passed her second test with flying colors. Our first reaction upon hearing this news was gladness and maybe a bit of relief. But after the nurse exited the room, that's when the gravity and realness of the moment hit us. Mel and I cried and cried, because we felt so horrible being happy that Norah was able to pass her test while her sister isn't so lucky. We felt horrible, but we both know it's just the first of many circumstances like this we'll all have to get through together as a family - and I know we will. 

One last thing, because I know I have some family member out there wondering: No, we haven't taken Norah to her first game yet. 

We love you, Norah. Maddie's little sister. Our little daughter. 

February Update

(Editor's note: This blog post has intentionally been written in a question and answer format.)

Hey John! Sure is swell to hear from you again! What are you up to? 
I'm blogging.

That sure sounds neat! Whatcha gonna talk about?
Stuff.

Man, sounds awesome! Can't wait to hear more about it!

Well, for starters I'm working new hours now. Not to get into any details, but the industry I work in currently is experiencing some not so good times right now. But when one door closes, as the saying goes, another one opens. This particular door opened to a new opportunity in a different department doing some different stuff during what I guess you could classify as "off-shift" hours. Vague enough for you? Good.

It's been an adjustment, and leaving to go to work in the afternoon has become increasingly difficult for me knowing that after I leave I won't get to see Maddie again until the following morning (although we do FaceTime every night while I'm eating dinner at work). But I really love being home in the mornings and so does Mel. I've even gotten to take her to school this week, which freaked her teacher out a little bit ("is everything alright with Melissa???" Yes yes, she's fine.)

And I know what you're thinking: What about the Rangers? How will you watch the games? Well, the short answer is I probably won't. Unless it's Saturday, Sunday, or a west coast start time. But in case you had forgotten, things are very rapidly going to become quite busy around the old plantation soon. Hey, that sounds like a nice segue-way into my next subject. Next question, please.

That's our second daughter's face, partially blocked by her arm, by the way.

So I guess that little bundle of joy should be a-comin soon! Hope you guys are ready! 

That wasn't really a question.

Hard to believe that yes, in about one month's time we will become a family of four. It feels like things have flown by this time around. It went by fast with Maddie, but that didn't really happen until the first of the year, and then it zoomed by right up until the day she was born in April. With Norah, this has been at warp speed pretty much from the day Mel found out she was pregnant again.

How are we doing? I guess we're good to go. Maybe a little stressed. Okay, I'M maybe a little stressed. As you can imagine, the work situation hasn't helped matters much. Mel is too busy planning things and looking for headbands to go with a dress for newborn pictures and making meals to stick in the freezer and deciding that Maddie's big girl bed doesn't look awesome against this wall and needs to be against that wall instead to be stressed.

Among the things we're looking forward to in all this, we're both very intrigued to see what similarities and differences there are between Norah and her big sister (man, that sounds weird). Is she going to have the same personality as Maddie, who loves to laugh at everything? Are they going to be exact opposites? Is she going to be a horrible sleeper, unlike her sister who can go Rip Van Winkle on you pretty well?

Is Norah going to pass her first hearing test, and not have to endure everything her sister is going through? We just don't know. We're anxious to find out all of these things, and to love our second little girl to the ends of the earth and back, just as we do our first.

Say, how's that little ball of energy Madeline doing? I bet she's cookin' up some trouble right now! 

Well since it's 12:03 AM as I am writing this, no she is not. But Maddie is not really a ball of energy, oh no. I wouldn't call her that at all. Perhaps something more accurate, like what about: A spherical shaped object of massive amounts of propulsion. She's ALWAYS going. She's pretty much everything we want and need in a child. She keeps us on our toes, she makes us laugh, makes us cry a lot too, and makes us both realize the kind of parents that we want to be: Supportive, caring, not over-bearing, and always there for our children whenever they need us.

Maddie has been wearing hearing aids for five months now. They are in from the time she gets up in the morning until she goes down for a midday nap, and then are back in her ears when she gets up until she goes to sleep for the evening. We've changed battery types and can now get about 4-5 days worth of juice out of them, depending on how often they're being used, and we also still have to watch out for the occasional wandering toddler fingers to pull one out an ear and insert it into her mouth because it looks like it might be fun to chew on.

She's also been in speech therapy for five and a half months, and this is the most important part of it all.

Having a child with a disability like we do with Maddie, it's real easy to put up a force field around them and yourself and tell everyone else around you that she's just like all the other kids. That part of it is true - Maddie is just like all the other kids. She loves to play with the dogs, loves the swings at the park, loves to read, loves to kick her Frozen ball around the house, loves playing in the dirt.......all of that. As Mel talked about in her last blog, she was made in the image of God just like the rest of us were. He knew what He was doing when he made her, just as He did with everybody else. It's just that Maddie's ears don't work quite as normally as the rest of the kids around her do.

Now with all that being said, yesterday at speech therapy might have been one of, if not the best 45 she's had there. I mean, Maddie was responding to everything just like she should. She was repeating things, responding the way she should to everything and it was wonderful to see. She's come so far from the first therapy session where it was more or less just getting Maddie to turn and look at you when we made a syllable sound.

A few weeks ago, seemingly out of the blue, Maddie said the word "baseball" to us while we were playing outside. It was like nothing we had ever heard before: Clear as day, almost perfect consonants and vowels...it was awesome. She had said other things up to that point too, your Mamas, Daddies, doggies, etc. But to us, when she said that it was a clear indication that everything we're doing, the hearing aids, the therapy, the sitting next to her at the dinner table making animal and transportation noises - it's working, it's all working. No doubt there's still going to be tough days for her and us. We worry almost daily if she's screaming and not cooperating because she's regressing or just being a toddler. But man, it was awesome.

In my head, I keep playing over scenarios of when she's older and in school and having to deal with questions from other kids about why she has to wear those things in her ears all the time. Maybe she won't know what to tell them, maybe she'll get upset and sad and come home crying to us wanting to know why she has have them. Or further down the road than that, and how they might affect whether or not she'll be good at sports. Or even further down the road than that, when she meets a boy and what his reaction will be when she explains going on with her ears to him? The time will come to address things like that, but not just yet because she's still just a kid. A kid who's about to become a big sister. Man, still sounds weird.

Wow John, that was really sweet! Really tugged at the ol' heart strings!

Please stop.

Ok, sorry.