preTzel praIse wedNesday

I love to follow hyperlinks from one blog to another just to see where I end up and whose life I will read about. The other day I was reading over at Wind In Your Vagina and there was a guest blogger named Heather and she mentioned that Black Hockey Jesus, for whom she was guest blogging, had a hyperlink in the sidebar in honor of Heather and her husband, Mike.

So I clicked over to The Spohrs Are Multiplying... and from there I read and read, got up to take a potty break, came back and read some more. I finally crawled in to bed after reading them for quite a few hours and I STILL wasn't done. See, I clicked on the Archives and started at the beginning.

Through my hours of reading I found myself laughing, crying, cheering, gasping, and rooting for their daughter, Maddie, to live so that her mommy and daddy could hold her and have the child they yearned for.

The journey that these two parents and one beautiful daughter traveled on is heart wrenching, uplifting, and beautiful. The advocating that Heather did for her daughter, fighting the Trickery of Dr. Lung, and the sheer strength these two parents showed is nothing less than amazing.

There are so many of their posts that I would love to highlight because they deserve it but the one that truly tugged at my heart was the one that Mike wrote. He wrote about being a father and the post was so touching and poignant and points out the connection that fathers have with their children. (The connection that so many men are missing out on because they want to be a dead beat dad.)Here is the post.

The part that had me going "Awww"?

For example, there currently is a commercial on TV about a Dad going on a business trip. His two-year old daughter hides her doll in his briefcase before he goes, and en route to the airport the Dad stumbles across it. He then decides to use his cell phone to take photos of the doll everywhere he goes on the trip and email them back to his daughter. He takes photos of the doll in front of a monument, in his hotel room, even perched on the conference table at the meeting that ostensibly was the reason for the trip in the first place. I find that last photo bizzare, and like to imagine that the business men in the background are going, “I like this guy. Let’s give him the deal! Um, wait. He just took a doll out of his briefcase. And now he’s taking a picture of it. Hmm. Maybe we should go with the other guy.”) At the end of the commercial the Mom and daughter open a photo sent from the Dad and see it is of the doll in front of their house. The daughter gasps, then runs outside and hugs her Dad. The end. Now before Madeline was born my friends and I would have made endless jokes about this cheesy, sentimental pap, and likely would have been in stitches imagining all of the wildly inapropriate places the Dad could have taken a photo of the doll, such as a strip club or Japanese massage parlour. After Madeline, however, I actually found myself weeping as the little girl hugged the Dad, and started running around our place taking photos of stuff with my cell phone to show Maddie at the hospital.

The part that had me laughing?

As amazing as babies are, however, they are also really strange. For those unitiated into the baby universe, here are a few details that will likely alarm you to know:

1) Babies have a “soft spot” atop their head where their skull hasn’t developed, and anyone could very easily stick their finger into their brain. Note: This fact will haunt you and make you suspicious of anyone with fingers.

2) Babies tote around a remnant of the umbilical cord called an umblical stump. It will rot, turn black and smelly, then finally fall out after a few weeks.

3) Babies are born with a bunch of stuff in their intestines called meconium, and have to pass this before they can pass breast milk and the like through their system. This meconium is very black and has a tar like consistancy. Yes, a tar like consistancy.

I realize those without kids are likely vowing never to have them after reading the above. The good news, however, is that once your baby is born you will love it so much that you will even brag about your baby completing numbers two and three. Don’t believe me? Well, Madeline passed her meconium yesterday! She, like all premies, had a hard time eating and digesting food, and for a while the doctors were a little concerned she had yet to pass the meconium even after beginning to eat breast milk. Well, she finally got rid of all that crap (pun intended), and started to have normal bowel movements!

I cried the first time Teen had his first bowel movement in the potty chair. I called my mother and cried and said "Teeny just went poop in the potty chair!" Then I hung up and did a potty dance with 2 yo Teeny. We danced and laughed and baked cupcakes and celebrated his first poo. Before the cupcake making we did take it to the toilet and sent it on a "mission".

If you get a chance to check out the Sporhrs you won't be sorry. It is worth the few hours it takes to get through all of the archives and then you will understand why I chose them for my first preTzel praIse wedNesday.

I made a cheesy little award badge for the highlights I do each week and if your post is chosen you certainly do not have to put it on your blog. Here is the badge:



Also, I would love LOVE if everyone could contribute a donation to March Of Dimes in the name of Maddie so that families of preemies get the assistance they need so their child has the best chance at life. The Spohrs Marched For Maddie so they could help other families in their own situation. You can read here about why the March of Dimes is so important.