THERE ARE DAYS YOU NEVER FORGET

There are certain days in your life that every detail is imprinted. Two years ago today is one of those days. Jack was 5 days old. He had been home from the hospital for almost 48 hours. Something was wrong, but no one suspected anything but his MOM. He had spent the day before at our house watching his first Super Bowl. He cheered for Eli. His Mom, Dad and Parker took him home after the game. Amanda was so tired that our plan was for her to come back to our house the next day and sleep, while we took care of this new little love. Micah had left for Fort Worth to work on a job. It makes me weak to think what would have happened if those plans had stayed the same. I am writing this post, if for no other reason to remind new Moms, that if they have that Mom's intuition and gut feeling that something is not right, CHECK IT OUT. I can hardly type that line without getting on my knees and thanking God that Amanda acted on nothing more than just an uneasy feeling that something was wrong. The only symptom Jack had was that he did not want to nurse on that Sunday night. Nothing more. He had been a tad jaundice when he left the hospital but we were not concerned about that. I can still remember that 9AM call from her asking her Dad to come and get her and her casually saying why didn't they stop by the doctors office and just make sure Jack was not more jaundice. Our pediatrician is not far from our house and we love her as a friend as well as a doctor. She is a wonderful lady, that 7 years before had taught my 18 year old, senior in high school girl that she could be the best Mom, always giving her confidence, always teaching her, always making her feel special. I will always be grateful to her for that. ALWAYS!
Another call came at 10 when my husband said to get dressed and get to the hospital, that they were admitting Jack to the NICU. I was stunned and had no idea what could be wrong. I dressed in record time and still remember the elevator doors opening , and Amanda sitting in a chair crying, as they were asking her to sign papers for all kinds of tests, including a spinal tap. Micah was already 4 hours away, hormones were raging as her milk was coming in and in just a matter of hours our healthy little baby was critically ill. His body temperature was extremely low. Critically low. There are some things that you do not have to be told. When 2 NICU doctors, and what seemed like every nurse on the floor was staying in his little isolation room, it was evident that things were not good. They immediately hooked him up to a broad spectrum of antibiotics, which to me is a scare in its self. I read faces and I saw some GRIM ones. Amanda probably does not even remember this, but I remember the director of the NICU sitting down and saying that he was very sick, we had caught it early, BUT things could go either way. I have never felt so helpless. It seemed like hours before we could see him and when we did he had tubes everywhere. That little cubicle was where we stayed for the next ten days, standing over that bed, praying that God would heal him. Meningitis was VERY serious in a week old baby. We stayed around the clock, constantly trying to get Amanda to go home and sleep, so she could continue to nurse. The assured us over and over that breast milk was even more important for him. After about 5 days I began to notice that the nurses did not have quite the same seriousness in their look when they were taking care of him. Ten days later we were able to bring a healthy little answer to prayer home. As Amanda and Micah left the hospital, the NICU doctor finally said those very sobering words to Amanda. Had she not gone with her gut feeling, this story would have had a very different out come. His words were "there would have been a funeral"! When I think of what would have happened had we gone with our original plans and just assumed that he was sleeping a lot, since that's what newborns do...with his temperature dropping quickly. Thank you God for sparing this child. I cannot imagine life without him. And the HERO...MY GIRL! Thank you Amanda for being the Mom you are. You are the best and your boys ADORE YOU. SOMEDAY we will tell him his MIRACLE STORY.

REMEMBER THAT SUNDAY NIGHT IS THE SUPERBOWL DRAWING. I THINK WE HAD 96 ENTRIES AND THERE ARE STILL 43 BLOGGERS IN THE RUNNING. I WILL POST THE WINNER ON MONDAY MORNING.

ALSO, YOU CAN READ THE PREVIOUS POST TO READ ABOUT OUR TRIP TO VAIL.

I HAVE A FUN POST COMING NEXT WEEK. WHILE WE WERE GONE MY DEAR FRIEND AND ELF, TERRI, CAME TO MY HOUSE AND PUT OUT ALL MY STUFF! ...I HAD ALL THE CHRISTMAS DOWN AND ALL MY REGULAR STUFF IN LITERALLY A PILE. SHE REDID THE MANTLE, MOVED FURNITURE, HUNG PICTURES, MADE NEW NOOKS....GENERALLY GAVE ME A MAKEOVER WITH MY STUFF. I LOVE IT AND IT WAS SO FUN COMING HOME TO. SHE MADE SOME GREAT PICTURES THAT I WILL SHARE NEXT WEEK.

OUR SNOW GET AWAY

These pictures will paint a small picture of our week in the snow. Thursday morning found us leaving on a jet plane. Can I tell you for our family to get through security, with stroller, carry-on luggage, computers, all get our jewelry and shoes back on, with no major break-downs, is what we consider a small MIRACLE! Parker is keeping Jack occupied with his DS while we buy water and coffee that we just had to throw away. As you can see Parker is in his Brett Farve gear, as we left with hopes of a win...The pictures below that are very self explanatory. Do whatever it takes to KEEP JACK HAPPY!

JACK IS FINALLY COMFORTABLE, NOW HIS MOM CAN READ.

We arrived at the VAIL/EAGLE airport to a SUBURBAN WAITING FOR US, COMPLIMENTS OF A FRIEND. WHAT A

BLESSING!!

WE drove for about 40 minutes to FRISCO and arrived at a wonderful MOUNTAIN HOME, compliments of some DEAR FRIENDS who live here in our town, but have a second home in Colorado. Thank you JOE and JAN. We loved your home. It was 3 stories and 4 if you count the loft! PARKER promptly claimed the LOFT as his own little HOME away from HOME! In another post I will show you the entire house, but here are a few shots of the bedrooms...you can tell that Jan is an interior decorator in Shreveport. She has impeccable taste.

This was the MASTER BEDROOM. THEY had just been there the week before so left this CUTE little BOOK on the bed.

Every room had its on charm with little touches that were so Jan! Great sheets and down comforters. We felt like we were at home.

WE stayed up late every night playing cards, watched football all day on Sunday, soaked in the beautiful scenery and saw lots of strange looking people at Safeway. The ski community is definitely a different bunch. I could have stayed in Starbucks for hours people watching.

JACK and PARKER'S FIRST OUTING in the SNOW. We were so thankful that it snowed almost everyday we were there.

PARKER is THE BEST BIG BROTHER AND JACK THINKS HE HUNG THE MOON...and I AM PRETTY SURE HE DID!

OUR VIEW

PARKER AFTER A HARD DAY SNOWBOARDING

THIS PICTURE IS SO JACK. HE FOUND THESE BEADS IN THE SUBURBAN and WOULD NOT TAKE THEM OFF.

ONE OF OUR FAVORITE MEALS AT ROUTE 6

AMANDA and HER LITTLE MAN

BEAUTIFUL VAIL VILLAGE at NIGHT...We had a WONDERFUL MEAL AT THE ORE HOUSE! NEVER TRUST A GPS in THE MOUNTAINS. A TRIP THAT SHOULD HAVE TAKEN 30 MINUTES, TOOK US THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS and TOOK 2 HOURS on VERY SCARY ROADS.

During the seven days we were on our trip we had some great meals out, but Micah and Amanda cooked some fantastic meals at the house. They are quite a TEAM in the kitchen. Amanda and I got to do a SPA DAY in downtown FRISCO at the neatest little spa. That's a post for another day. AND YES, I BOUGHT a NEW CAMERA and DID NOT USE IT ONCE. I just realized there is not one picture of me or of JACK (POP)! Guess that was because we always had the camera. I had planned to read the instructions to the new camera on the plane and that did not happen. Then after the first day of ALTITUDE sickness and a GIANT HEADACHE, I just never fooled with it...It was too easy to just use what I knew. So next trip, BETTER PICTURES. Our trip home was a little more hectic as we had to wait at the gate in Houston for 45 minutes until another plane moved and we came within a minute of missing our connection home. The door was already closed, but a very nice guy saw that we were not happy and let us on. Let's just say that the last hour of our trip, Jack was the kid that you did not want sitting close to you. He was not HAPPY and wanted EVERYONE to know IT!