Ageless Passions by Karen Putz

Tag: birthday

  • Officially a Mom of Three Teenagers

    Today’s a big day.  This is the day that Steven turns thirteen.

    It’s official.  I’m a mom of three teenagers.

    How did the time go by so fast?  I can remember his birth as if it was just yesterday…

    When I was pregnant with Steven, I had the brilliant idea of ripping out our bathtub and putting in a large soaking tub so that I could labor comfortably in it.  Joe went along with it.  It was only a few hundred dollars for the tub and we figured we could do most of the work ourselves.  Never mind that it involved removing half of our double sink and putting a toilet in that space.  Such a simple job, we thought.

    The work was moving along slowly.  Joe framed the bathtub and we hired a plumber to do all the pipe work.  A friend helped tear down the tile and we hired someone else to tile up the side of the tub and walls just days before the birth.    When the midwife and naturopath arrived, Joe was working on the floor.

    I was a bundle of nerves and I couldn’t quite get settled that week.  I had no doubts about doing a homebirth, but there was an unease inside of me, a lot of it had to do with concerns that I didn’t recognize until much later after the birth.  Someone had advised me to pray to St. Therese for this birth and I learned that this saint answers prayers with “a shower of roses.”   As we got ready to take a walk that evening, the midwife casually mentioned that she received a beautiful bouquet of red roses from a mom who had homebirthed with her.

    I knew that was my sign.  From that point on, I was enveloped with an amazing, calm feeling.  I simply focused on each breath and dove into the hypno-birthing from that point on.   During the pushing, I was using Christie Lake as a focal point in my mind.  At one point, the naturopath was applying fundal pressure and I saw a sparkle of blue lights.  It was as if I was floating on the lake on a beautiful summer day and the lake was twinkling in the sun.  I recently learned that it’s a sign of Mother Mary being present.   There definitely was some divine intervention for Steven’s birth, because I was given Cytotec at the beginning–which can cause ruptures and is very unsafe for VBACs.   I did not know this at that time.  I later wrote an article about the dangers of Cytotec which was published in Midwifery Today and DON’T CUT ME AGAIN! True Stories About Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC).

    The day that Steven entered this world was an amazing one and I do have lots of good memories of his birth.  Despite the medical aspect, the midwife and naturopath tended to me well.  They sang, they cooked, they did laundry, they soothed and they supported me.  If I could do it all over again, without a doubt, I would have homebirthed all three kids.  I was fortunate to attend several births since then, including a home waterbirth and a winter solstice birth.

    So here I am, thirteen years later with a house full of teenagers.  You know all those horror stories that everyone has about teens?  Hogwash.  The teen years are the best years.

    “Mom?  Can I go to Buffalo Wild Wings with my friends?  I need some money.”

    “Sure, honey.  I’ll give you fifteen bucks.  But first, mop the kitchen floor, clean the upstairs bathroom and do a load of laundry.  Then you can go.”

    Happy Birthday, Steven Michael!

  • Happy Birthday, Dave!

    Eighteen years ago in August, my life changed.  I know you’re mentally calculating and saying, “Wait a minute, David just turned seventeen today, what’s this about eighteen years ago?”  I know my friend Sue is reading this with a smile, because she got pregnant on the same night that I did and we always laugh at the memory.  Ok, so technically it was nine months before today, but you get the idea.

    David and Sue’s son, Alex, were born exactly a week apart, down to the exact minute of their birth.  Alex arrived first, and I went nuts for an entire week waiting for David to make his arrival into the world.  David was born by cesarean, thanks to a doctor who I suspect was simply impatient to get back to his rounds.  I ended up with an allergic reaction to the epidural and broke out in hives, which the doctor blamed on the hospital sheets.  It wasn’t until I had the same reaction to Lauren’s birth and a different doctor, that we realized the epidural medicine was the cause.

    As a kiddo, David was my Energizer Bunny, and I’m always so thankful that he was my first born because I had the energy back then to keep up with him.  Both Grandmas often handed him back with a sigh after babysitting him, they were exhausted just chasing him around.   I can remember many battles of stuffing him in his car seat and hoping that he’d stay in one place but only to turn around and find him dancing in the back of the van.  I can’t even begin to count the many times that I lost him in the mall while shopping with Sue.  Alex would be sitting contentedly in his stroller and we’d have to take off yet again to hunt for David.

    In the photo above, we had just returned home from the hospital after getting six stitches.  David was riding around on Joe’s back and fell off.  He landed kaput into the corner of a Lego model that he had just put together.

    When Lauren came along, David was the ultimate big brother.  He did everything with his sister in tow.  I think one of the reasons he likes to cook today is because we spent so much time making cookies and brownies just to keep him in one place for a few minutes.  The most memorable moment was the time that he and Lauren ran their crayons all over the kitchen wall and the day that he threw a brand new book into the bathtub.

    By the time Steven came along, David was the helpful older brother and the Energizer battery started to wind down a little bit.  I say just a “little bit,” because he would still do stuff that would make my hair stand on end, like the time that he put the slide on top of the picnic table so that he could “get a better ride into the pool.”

    So Happy Birthday to my seventeen-year-old– I cannot believe that you are just one year away from being an adult and soon to fly off to college.  It’s been seventeen amazing years and I’m looking forward to watching you grow even more.

  • My Mom’s View of my Birthday

    “Ok, Mrs. Griffard, you’re going to have this baby soon,” said the nurse as she moved around the bed and pushed back the sheets.

    “This really hurts!” Mom said.  “When is the doctor going to put me out?”

    “Oh no, we don’t do that anymore.”

    “What do you mean?  I was put out for my other four!”

    “No, you’ll have to help push this baby out.”

    “You gotta be kidding.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! This hurts! Ow, ow, ow!  I feel like I’m going to be split apart!  This is painful!”

    And that’s how I came into the world 44 years ago.

  • Yes, It’s My Birthday–You Want to See My Present?

    A special thank you goes to all of you for the many Tweets, emails and Facebook comments that everyone left today. Terry Starbucker even sang “Just the Way You Are–” virtually, of course. I’m a sucker for that song.

    The hubby apparently forgot my birthday early this morning before he went to work. He remembered around 9:40 this morning, when he sent a text message. He came home for lunch and left a nice note in front of the computer. My friend Beth took me out to lunch and we did dinner with the in-laws.

    This morning, I was tweeting about my favorite birthday cake, the Red Velvet cake. That cake is a staple in my family and my Mom has made it for many, many birthdays among my siblings and the grandkids. I promised Genevieve Hinson a peek at it:

    Those of you who read this blog faithfully (what do you mean you don’t?  Subscribe, baby!) know that I bought myself the ultimate birthday present recently.  For those of you who don’t know, let me tell you about my present.  It’s a big, gleaming hunk that I can wrap my legs around and ride.  It has different speeds and even accessories that allow me to decide when it goes fast and when it goes slow.  

    Oh no, no, no–get your head out of the gutter.

    Here’s my new toy:

      I figure it’s a lot more satisfying than having an affair.  John Edwards should have bought one.

  • Summer is Flying By

    Ah, it felt good to unplug this week. 

    I took the kids back up to Christie Lake on Sunday to grab the last full week up here.  My cousins came up from Missouri  again and my husband’s friend and his kids joined us on Wednesday.  Mike and his kids only planned to stay two days, but it’s Sunday morning and they’re still here.  We are sitting in the kitchen having omelettes and getting ready for a final boat ride before we head home.  That’s the lure of lakeside living–good food, good friends and lots of fun.  It’s hard to leave.

    Yesterday, for the fun of it, we drove around the lake to see the few homes that are up for sale.  Housing prices on the lake have soared in the last five years.  We stopped at a house that was priced at $900,000 last year and is being offered at $649,000 this summer.  It’s a beautiful piece of property but the house looks like it will require some work to update it.  Also up for sale is a pair of houses that my friend Tammy rented for several years.  The two tiny houses perched on a very tiny lot are going for $349,000.   There’s also another small ranch home up for sale for nearly 300 grand.

    There’s even a beautiful lot for sale for…are you ready for this….$345,000.  This lot is on the same part of the lake that my two brothers owned land many years ago.  They bought the lot for ten grand back then and sold it a few years later for a very small profit.   It’s hard to believe that land has soared that much in price but Christie Lake is a private lake, one of the few private lakes in Michigan with no public access. 

    For the last couple of years, I have been talking about buying a jet ski.  I started looking at used ones earlier in the summer.  I came close to purchasing a few of them, but someone else always beat me to the offer.  “Why don’t you look at a new one?” the hubby suggested.   I stopped at Leader’s Marine in Kalamazoo on the way home from dropping off a Redbox movie and looked at the new ones.  Sea Doo was running a special with low cost financing and a $800 gas card.

    I went to talk to Dick, a 74-year-old neighbor who owned pretty much every toy there is.  He had some ski lifts sitting in the water and I wanted to see if I could buy one.  They’ve gone through three used jet skis.  The most recent one was purchased by his son earlier in the summer and it was already out of commission just a few weeks later.  I was apprehensive about buying used vs. new.  I was leaning toward the new Sea Doo, mostly because it had a key that wouldn’t let a user go over 35 mph.  I could use that for the kids to keep them from going full speed at 50-60 mph.

    “Life is short, go buy it!” Dick said.

    Life is short.  How many times have I said that to other people?

    And that’s how I ended up buying a Sea Doo for my birthday.