These "dang" hands

Christmas 2004 would be eventful. "She" was out of town visiting her family for a couple weeks, and life was good. Grant invited everyone over to his house a night or two after Christmas to play pool and watch a movie. The night felt like the good old days (ha, the time line of this entire story is 2 months tops!) When the time came to watch a movie we agreed on "Billy Madison" and I sat on a couch with Grant in order to allow my friend that was there that night to make her move on the boy she liked. So there I found myself, in a dark room, with a blanket, sitting next to Grant, watching "Billy Madison". Conditions were perfect, and apparently Grant agreed. 15 minutes or so into the movie I felt Grant's hand nudging mine. Holy Christmas miracle! He DID like me, I knew it!!! I grabbed his hand, not too concerned about the girlfriend that he hadn't so much as mentioned the entire time she was gone. I quickly rationalized that they must have broken up, and I was getting my chance to let Grant know that I was in.
After about 5 minutes of intense hand holding, someone asked what time it was. Jerk, there was a clock on the VCR! Grant abruptly dropped my hand and  jerked both hands from underneath the blanket in an elaborate show of checking his watch (which was on the opposite hand he was using to hold mine). What?!? What was happening? I had just been dropped as quickly as I'd been picked up. I was getting some major mixed signals. He was no longer holding my hand, but there was some major leaning in going on, also, a little knee rubbing, and all of this while his phone was continuously buzzing with an ongoing conversation via text with a mystery person- AKA his girlfriend (yeah, he knew how to text, unlike me). I went home that night more than a little confused, but also with hope. The door had been opened, I just had to shove myself on through, and I planned to do that the next night.
Grant invited the group back over for a movie the next night. Somehow it ended up being just Grant and me. I remember walking into his house ready to get to the bottom of this. We were going to have a serious conversation, and I was going to lay it all out there. One problem, My future brother-in-law sat working on his computer at the dining room table directly behind the couch we were sitting on, and he didn't seem very happy that we were watching a movie by him. At least that's what I made of his  frequent shushing and glares. I would wait him out. It was Christmas break, he couldn't do homework all night. Grant managed to finagle a back rub while I was waiting out his brother, and so I rubbed, and I rubbed, and rubbed some more, but his brother would not give up and go to bed. Well, there would be no hashing it out after all, but if the hand holding didn't make it clear that I liked him, I'm pretty sure the hour long back rub did. I would just have to wait for him to come to his senses and confess his love for me, he had nothing to loose now.
A day or two later his girlfriend came back into town, and they were as together as they'd ever been. I had misread something somewhere along the way. I went back to the beginning, when I thought Grant had first shown interest- the hand nudging. UGH, I was so embarrassed! He wasn't trying to hold my hand, he must have been looking for the remote! Yes, that was the only explanation, and I grew more sure of it each passing day. I was a fool. I had laid it out there and he had just been looking for the remote.

Exaggerations of a woman spurned

Grant chose the title on this one.
They were disgusting. And I'm not the only one who felt that way. The next few weeks were a blur of PDAs and snuggling, and more PDAs, and just all around grossness. They had a special gift for clearing a room, which was a little problematic as Grant's house had evolved into the hangout spot over the last month, and now the group was "homeless" or "hangout-less".  Whenever Grant invited people over, there was a secret network of calls that went out to find out if "she" would be there. Would we be subjected to that awkward moment when you're watching a movie and everyone is trying to pretend that they don't notice the two people on the couch getting a little too cozy? Yeah, like I said- DISGUSTING!
No one understood this match. I realize my view was a little biased considering the feelings and what not, but everyone was scratching their heads about this one. She really didn't seem like his type. Suzy was well aware of my feelings at this point and saw an opportunity to gain some insight on the situation one night when we were hanging out with her brother Cory, Grant's best friend. We were driving to the dollar store so Cory could pick up something for a Christmas present, and Suzy just flat out asked-
 "what is he even doing with her? This whole thing makes no sense. Why is he with her?"
I sat in the back of the car in silence just waiting to finally get the real story. I can still remember how disgusted Cory sounded when he answered back with-
"Did it ever occur to you that maybe he likes her, mind your own business. He's allowed to like whoever he wants!"
Ugh, a dagger to the heart. I had allowed myself to hope that maybe he really didn't like her, there was just some giant missing piece that we didn't know about that would easily explain why Grant was dating this girl- No such luck. Cory had dashed my hope. If anyone was privy to what was really happening it was him, and he seemed to think Grant genuinely liked her.
Everything was just wrong. We were all still hanging out, friends, but I was dying.  Why would I keep hanging out with him when it was sooo not fun to see him with this girl? He was a part of the group, a friend, and while I may have realized a little too late that I had feelings for this friend, he was a friend no less. So, I continued to hang out with him. I would have had to abandon my whole group of friends to avoid him, and I decided that it would be easier to just continue on as though I felt nothing. A few close friends in our group were aware that I liked him though, and were always willing to let me vent, or come up with a quick excuse to get me out of the really unbearable situations. I still remember one night, watching a movie and half way through "she" showed up. "She" was not supposed to be there that night, but for some reason her schedule had changed and now she was there watching the movie and snuggling Grant. My friend texted me during all this "are you ok?" and I attempted to respond "yeah, this sucks. I'm going to leave as soon as its not obvious" . The problem was, I didn't know how to text (I know, crazy ) so I was only able to text "yeah" and nothing else because I didn't know how to put a space in a text. So was I ok? "Yeah."

That time Mexican food ruined everything

I was doing quite well living in denial. I had myself pretty well convinced that I really wasn't starting to like Grant. I still had loads of time on my hands (present day Liz is disgusted by the amount of time you just wasted away 18 year old Liz!). I also had a little money coming in now thanks to my secret job, and so Suzy and I decided to add lunches out to our favorite Mexican restaurant on an almost daily basis to the routine. It was delicious, but oh the trouble this yummy little habit would cause.
Suzy and I would frequently share clothes, and so it was on a certain Sunday that I found myself wearing one of her sweaters. It was a very cute sweater, and really pulled my outfit together that day, but after wearing the sweater for about an hour I started to smell something. I first assumed it was someone sitting around me that unfortunately had b.o. issues, but after a sniff test I realized with horror that I was the one who smelled like I had bathed in a bath of garlic and onions. It was the sweater! Our frequent lunches at Torro Viejo had left their mark, or scent, on the sweater. Suzy sniffed the sweater and agreed, I smelled like a burrito.
Now, this is where my memory gets a little fuzzy. I knew the sweater smelled, but for some reason I not only didn't change at the first possible opportunity, but I decided to continue to wear it to hang out with friends that night. Not my best choice.
The beginning of the night was spent playing pool at Grant's house, and then we heard that the party was moving to another house so we packed up and headed over. I knew I smelled, so I did my best to stay on the outskirts of the group. Suzy was willing to sit by me, and as we sat on the couch together it became apparent that another girl was getting ready to move in on Grant. There I sat, frozen, unable to do anything about what was happening before my eyes, its not like you can really make your move when you smell like a burrito. That stupid sweater! I was screaming inside! "No, I LIKE you! Don't do it! Do Not hold her hand! Stop it right now!!! If you can just wait one more day I'll put on a clean shirt and I'll hold your hand and rub my hands in your hair, and laugh at your jokes, and pretend I'm dumber than I am and don't know how to spell Campbell (seriously, she didn't know how to spell Campbell), and we can be a thing! JUST STOP NOW!" Well, Grant can't read minds, and she moved right on in while I watched in smelly agony.
I guess I did like him after all, it only took him getting a girlfriend for me to admit it to myself.

Good things come to those who cheat

We've all heard that cheaters never prosper, but I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a "Liz and Grant" if it wasn't for a little cheating. I survived the night of sardines in the graveyard. Napoleon Dynamite quotes gave us enough to talk about for the first 15 minutes while we hid behind a tombstone, and Grant was even chivalrous enough to lay his jacket on the ground for us to sit on. When our conversation started to lag, we just resorted to throwing rock and sticks in the direction of anyone who came near our hiding spot in hopes of  being found and hurrying the game along. Yes, he did continue to call me Lindsey for the rest of the night, and would do so for another week or two until he was finally informed by a friend in our group that my name was Liz, not Lindsey, but again, it really didn't matter what he called me- I had absolutely no interest in him. Well, I thought I had no interest in him.
Life continued on in much the same manner as it had. Days spent hanging out in the coffee stand, nights spent with friends doing whatever the group decided was on, and of course lots of gossip about boys, boys, boys. For the record, Suzy had decided that she too was not interested in Grant, but for a different reason. He was quickly building a reputation in the singles branch as a Mormon slut (which  means that he had taken more than two girls on dates in the last month, and might have even kissed them) It was pretty scandalous. I didn't care if he had a reputation as a flirt, he still just seemed painfully shy and boring to me.
That all started to change one Monday night when we were playing Pictionary. We were playing boys vs. girls, and the boys were cheating like crazy. Actually just Grant was cheating, and he was making no attempt to hide it. By the end of the game everyone was playing just to see the lengths Grant was going to to cheat, and it ended up being pretty funny. Maybe he had a personality after all.
I can still remember the moment it first crossed my mind that I might be starting to like him. I had a lot of time to think, as I had run out of money and had to take on a "secret" job delivering newspapers in the middle of the night. I had nothing but my thoughts to pass the time as I drove my car around the route and there came a point when I realized that Grant was starting to pop into my thoughts a lot more than I was comfortable with. It was there in my car at 3 in the morning, with the window down and the cold December air blowing in that I had to entertain the idea that I might be starting to like the most boring guy in the world. I was disgusted with myself. I was better than this. I had already had to take on my secret job out of desperation, my pride couldn't handle another hit like this. I did not like him! I was just starting to feel desperate because of the "slim pickins" I was surrounded by. Nope, this was not going to happen!

The Begining

I spent much of my early teen years daydreaming about what my life would be when I grew up. There were so many things to speculate about, and entertaining all the possibilities was just too fun not to. Where would I go to college, what would I get my degree in, where would I end up living, what kind of car would I drive, what color carpet would go in my mansion, how many children would I have and what would their names be, and most importantly who was that amazing guy that would get to come along for the ride with me. There were a few things that I didn't need to speculate on. Mr Amazing would be tall, dark, and ridiculously good looking, his smile would be more dazzling than the sun at 12 oclock noon, he would be the most fasionable straight man you'd ever meet, and he would also be independenlty wealthy and enjoy showreing me with lavish gifts. And maybe he should be funny, and good with kids, cause someone was going to need to take care of all those children living in my mansion with forest green carpet. WELL 14 year old Liz, I have seen the future, and it's kind of awesome.
Believe it or not Mr amazing would show up in Rathdrum Idaho on a cold day in November, however you didn't quite realize that he was the  one and only "Mr Amazing" of your teen daydreams right away. In fact your first impression would be "meh, he's kinda boring. I guess he's ok for Suz."
November 2004 I found myself moving back home to my parents. I had moved to California to go to school and get a fresh start two days after I graduated high school, and it only took me 5 months to have a nervous breakdown and run home to Mom and Dad. I had a little money in savings, but no one was hiring in our tourist town during the off season so I decided that I would spend my days sitting in the Coffee stand that my friend Suzy worked at and keep her company.  Obviously a great use of the abundance of time I had on my hands. Boys, boys, boys, our lives revolved around BOYS. Who was dating who in our small singles branch, who was cute, who was trouble. I was new to the singles branch, and didn't know who any of these people were that Suzy would give me the info on, but all of that changed one day when she mentioned a certain boy. He was her brother's best friend, and he had just come home from his mission. She was maybe interested in him (Suzy was maybe interested in everyone) but thought he was maybe a flirt. The gossip went, that he had totally been putting the moves on her and now she needed to decide if she liked him.
Well, this boy was a sucker for free  hot chocolate, so Suzy decided one day while we sat in the 6x8 coffee stand that she would lure him in with a free hot chocolate, and then I could meet him and give her my opinion on this boy.
Her plan worked and Grant showed up with in the hour to claim his free hot chocolate.  I was left alone with him off and on for the next 30min while Suzy worked on closing up the coffee stand, and tried my best to keep the conversation going, but talking was not this guy's greatest strength. Suzy finished closing up and informed us that a group was getting together to hang out and play tag at the grave yard (seriously the things Mormons come up with to kill time). I could not wait to get out of there, and away from that painfully awkward conversation, so off I headed to hang out with the group. This Grant kid would be ok for Suzy, he wasn't offensive or anything, but he also had absolutely zero personality- I could easily pass on this one...
 The night continued with some tag in the graveyard, and getting to meet a few more people. Someone came up with the genius idea of switching from tag to "sardines". There would be a race to a tree in the middle of the cemetery, and whoever the last two to the tree were, would be "it" and hide together. I was new to the group and had no desire to spend another awkward 30 minutes trying to make conversation with someone I didn't know. I was not going to be the last one to that tree. I took off running as fast as I could, but forgot that I am the slowest runner you'll ever meet. My sprints look like a casual jog. I wasn't last though, just second to last. I tagged the tree just in time to turn around and see Grant, the most boring boy in the world, easily galloping up to the tree. He was last. I would have to hide with him. Awesome.
  Off we headed and then, "well, Lindsey, where do you want to hide?" Seriously, he's calling me the wrong name?!? I weighed my options and decided that I couldn't bear the awkwardness of correcting him on top of everything else. Why bother, I was never going to hang out with this guy again.

2 years Later

So a lot has happened in the past two years, and while there are many things that I would like to remember in greater detail in the years to come it is a little overwhelming to try to catch everything up, so I'll start where we are.
It's a Friday morning, Hallie and Ez are at a preschool summer camp and Malcolm is napping, for hopefully more than 15 min- the kid is definitely not my best sleeper. He just hit 4 months this week, and I am trying to convince myself that we are on our way out of the "fog" that is life with a new baby. The past couple weeks there have been little moments throughout the days that give me hope that he is going to start mellowing out, or maybe I am just coming to terms with our new normal. Either way I'll take it, I will always be one of the first to admit that I have a great life, but it has felt HARD the last couple of months, and I will be so happy when it all feels normal again. I have no delusions that it will be what it was before he was born, but I do have dreams of it just not feeling quite so hard- hopefully soon!
Malcolm was born on April 10th, and our whole family was loving this sweet little guy. I swear new babies are like a drug, there are no words that can ever describe what you feel, and how strongly you feel in those first precious days. For two days we basked in the high that was life with this sweet baby boy, and on day three our bubble was burst, big time. During his routine check with the hospital pediatrician, she noticed that a slight heart murmer that she had heard on the day he was born was getting louder and needed to be checked into. I was informed that instead of going home that day, I would be discharged and malcolm would be sent to Cincinnati Children's to have more tests run. I had sent Grant to work that morning thinking that I was just going to have a boring day waiting to be discharged, and would just let him know when it looked like we'd be leaving. Instead I found my room being swarmed by doctors and nurses trying to decide if there was enough time to discharge me and let us drive Malcolm  the half mile to Children's hospital, or if they should send him in an ambulance. I quickly lost any composure that I had, and sent Grant a text letting him know he needed to come back ASAP, as I didn't trust myself to be able to get the words out in a phone call without completely breaking down. Well, 15 min later there was no Grant and he hadn't responded to the text, so I had to call him sobbing, and let him know what was going on. Grant got back to the hospital as fast as he could, and and was a wreck as well. We were discharged and headed straight to Children's to start the testing.
At the end of a very long, and emotional day we were told that Malcolm has Pulmonary Stenosis. It is a congenital heart defect  where the pulmonary valve did not form correctly, and the heart ends up working  too hard to try to pump through the narrowed valve. If not eventually treated through surgery, it will lead to heart failure. It was very surreal to sit in a room and listen to the doctors tell you that your child has a heart defect that has the potential to eventually kill him. It didn't really sink in until the last minute or two of the consultation, when I started to grasp that they were telling us that this was not something that he would grow out of, this is something that will continue to get worse until we do surgery.
Fast forward 4 months, and we have had more doctors appointments and tests to monitor it, and BigMac is by all outward appearances thriving (and living up to his nick-name, the kid is huge!) This is the crazy thing about his defect, these kids seem so healthy, you would never guess that their heart is a "ticking time bomb" of sorts. We have been told that it possible that he will start to be more lethargic, and have trouble with feedings as the stenosis progresses, but the goal is to time the surgery before their quality of life really starts to diminish,  . If they are exhibiting symptoms it means the heart is experiencing stress, and irreversible damage- so obviously they want to get the surgery done before that point. Malcolm's doctor thinks that Malcolm will likely need surgery by December with the rate he is progressing.
They are hopeful that they will be able to treat Malcolm with a less invasive catheter surgery, but we have been forewarned that valves that are especially thickened, fused, or domed, (all of which Malcolm has) might not respond as well and to the catheter surgery, and he could end up needing a valve replacement.
We are taking it one step at a time, and loving our time with this little guy.That's all you can really do.

Spring Time

Easter, sunshine, and long afternoons playing outside planting apple seeds and "bean stops". Life doesn't get much better!