first day of first grade

first day of kindergarten, first day of first grade

i'm sitting here aghast at how much my little miss has grown. her long tresses are gone, taking the little girl hair ribbons with them. permanent teeth are replacing the babies from last year and those floral mary jane's are now sitting in her little sister's shoe pile. the dress she wore on her first day of kindergarten wouldn't even cover her bum bum today. despite how much miss mia has changed, that nervous first-day-of-school smile has remained undoubtedly the same.

i marvel at what a crowded classroom and overextended teacher were able to instill in her last year. i'm eager to see what a smaller first grade class can accomplish. mia's new teacher is equipped with the sugar of kinder and the classroom management of middle school. it was easier leaving her this time. knowing her teacher and many of her classmates really helped.

custom hairclip made to match her cute new kicks.

in the morning, the first graders form lines on their room numbers in the large playgound behind the school, like all the other big kids. mrs. crossley guided her line of parents and fresh faced students to her classroom where we would say our goodbyes. i held tight to mia's hand while we walked, feeling embarrassed when i realized that the only one this was comforting was me. mia had no qualms about waving us off.

big bug, we're so proud of you!

grateful to call her ours

thursday morning, just before i left to go home

not long ago, i wrote here about my little sister's natural ability to connect my siblings. i called her 'good sticky glue'. if you've read this blog, you probably know that we (that is my family and i) call her a great many things, but today we're simply grateful to call her ours.

like the time following my dad's passing, the traumatic events of last weekend are blurry around the edges. i've pieced together a rough time line of katrice's ordeal that i will share, because i have no idea how the hell else to tell this story.

saturday

9:30pm katrice almost passes out in the bath, taken to the ER ('episode' 1)

sunday

8:00am diagnosed with an infected gall bladder
9:00am her siblings are informed
1:00pm i board a plane for utah
6:00pm more severe 'episode' requiring man and machine to maintain heartbeat
7:00pm ambulance ride with tiff to state of the art heart and lung ICU

monday

12:00am episodes requiring resuscitation start coming frequently. we stand by doing our damnedest to supress our emotions, gain her compliance, sooth, and distract her from the surrounding chaos.
2:00am cardiologist arrives and preforms emergency surgery, floating a temporary pace maker to keep her heart beating through the night. the nurses employ tiff during the surgery to keep katrice calm. she's kept slightly sedated until her scheduled surgery 14 hours later.
4:00pm cardiologist successfully places her permanent pace maker, leading our silly goose right out of the woods!

i'd seen only glimpses of our silly gooey glue before i left for the airport thursday morning. the heart failure katrice had been experiencing caused fluid retention in her liver, restricting its ability to filter the sedatives. for 3 days we'd studied her moniters and watched her restless chemical-induced slumber.

talking to me!

tiff's ringtone sung over my piles of laundry friday morning. tears sprung to my eyes when i was greeted by a vivacious katrice on the other end. to have witnessed the life leave her, and then hear it return in all its giggly glory, was, and still is, overwhelming.