Happy Holidays From The Conleys

This is our holiday missive that I send out every year. Since my mailing list is topping 200 and in the interest of saving: postage, paper, the postal worker's back, my time, my husband's sanity from how this takes over the dinning room table for a week, and the planet, I am putting this on the blog. Everybody willing/ interested in receiving electrons instead of paper please let me know I will take you off the mailing list next year. I have included the two pictures we mailed plus lots of others. This is our annual family picture outing. Abbi is 12 and Caelun is 18 months. If you are willing to read the letter here but want actual pictures that can be arranged as well.

Dear family and friends,

We hope this finds you well. It is once again time for our annual recap. We are all doing well- finally. Clint and I are both enjoying our students. Abbi (please note the spelling change) is adjusting nicely to middle school, and Caelun is enjoying his afternoons with Auntie Pam, my friend who watches him, while I am teaching. Our clubs and volunteer activities are progressing nicely, and the year of the broken baby seems to be in our rear view mirror. The “broken baby” you say? Remember this is the baby that was four weeks early, had stage one nephritis on the right side, breech legs, couldn’t lay down or sleep through the night because of acid reflux that took two medications to get control of the projectile vomiting, and torticollis requiring physical therapy. This doesn’t even mention the ears that hadn’t un-furled, and the supinated chin that while not hurting him, made him funny looking, putting in question future dating possibilities. Our pediatrician began to refer to us as frequent flyers, but she promised “we will fix him” Our thoughts were “why is he so broken?

January brought the New Year and new classes for Clint. I didn’t take any classes in the winter. He is progressing rapidly through his master’s degree and thus is getting closer to his provisional teaching certificate. Rita took all of us on a weekend to Great Wolf Lodge indoor water park as a Christmas present. Abbi brought her friend Kaley. The kids loved it as did we. The water slides were really great. January also brought double ear infections for Caelun that we couldn’t kick with several antibiotics, including a series of Rocephin shots. This caused him to loose his balance, and stop walking, which he had started doing at 9 ½ months, and continued sleepless nights. Definitely broken.

This led us to February, debate state finals, and ear tubes. Tom is now our family ENT. He deals with Clint and Abbi’s allergies, my sinus issues and now Caelun’s ears. I canceled my trip to DC to lobby with NSBA , because I wasn’t sure I would be able to put Caelun on a plane. This same issue caused us to not schedule a trip to FL during our mid-winter break. The tubes were miraculous. The angels were singing and we all were sleeping. We trekked to Ann Arbor for debate state finals. The kids placed 10^th, and we thought the sailing would be smooth. We had one ear infection post tubes- yeah I know that isn’t supposed to happen, but we were able to take care of it with antibiotic drops. All should be smoothing sailing right? HA HA! Beware the Ides of March!

March brings in the forensics season. It also brought in cold and flu season. Caelun got a cold. Abbi came down with a sore throat that looked like it might be strep. Clint and I were taking turns with a flashlight trying to ascertain how serious her throat was, because this stuff only happens on a weekend when your doctor isn’t available. We were trying to decide if she could wait until Saturday morning and we could take her to the med. clinic or if we needed to take her in to urgent care that night. This would be when her little brother woke up from a nap and could barely breathe. After a steamy shower and a consultation with our first responder/neighbor Brian Velting, we headed to the ER with both kids in tow. Clint was in one bay with Abbi and was in the next one with Cae. The verdict; Abbi had a virus- not strep. Caelun had croup exacerbated by a reactive airway brought on by the reflux in conjunction with the cold. Abbi got to go home. Caelun stayed in the ER. Albuteral was traded for racemic epinephrine. He had an IV in his head and darned if that kid didn’t keep smiling- he did however look like an Iraq soldier with a head wound, with all of the tape and gauze. Caelun spent three days in a room with a view and an oxygen tent. This means I spent three days in a room with a view and an oxygen tent. When they admitted us they brought us in to a room with the tent over a crib. I let go of him to go to the bathroom and you would have thought someone skinned him alive. They moved the tent to a regular hospital bed and we both crawled in. Clint took Abby home and Cae and I read Good Night Moon All Night and into the morning. Clint slept for about ten minutes, arranged to get Abbi watched by our dear neighbors, brought clothes- to replace mine that Cae had puked on, stuff to get sub plans to work for both of us, and tooth brushes. The good news is I now have Good Night Moon memorized from reading it over and over again.

“ In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon and three little bears sitting on chairs …”

Mary and Floyd came to the hospital on day two, to try to let me leave to get more clothes- not so much. I did at this point, at least get to go to the bathroom with out a baby on an IV, on my lap. After 3 days we seemed to have the worst of it under control. Clint and I got home from the hospital with Cae and a nebulizer in tow, and Clint look at me and said “honey, isn’t there a lemon law?” That afternoon we also came down with what ever the virus was Caelun had and we both missed a week of school. Please bring on April.

April arrived. The snow melted, the grass came up, and Caelun didn’t seem to have any thing wrong with him. We planted much of the garden over spring break and still Caelun seemed to be okay. We had our egg hunt. Alas, Abbi decided she was too big to hunt for eggs but she is good at helping to hide them. Caelun hunted eggs. His first birthday came and went, and he started to sleep. I swear he actually started to sleep for 8 to 9 hours at a stretch! We moved him into his room from our room, after fully painting and decorating with a garden/bug theme. The rest of forensics season went smoothly. Clint took another class. Still, Caelun seemed to not be in a state of disrepair.

May brought state finals for forensics. I took a group to EMU. Clint and Cae-Cae came along. I had an impromptu go all the way to semi-final round, and dear Jennifer is only a sophomore, so this bodes well for next year. Still nothing new was wrong with Caelun.

June bought Abbi’s twelfth birth day the same weekend Clint’s sister Mandy got married. School let out for Abbi, Clint, and I. Mandy came in from FL. Wes, her betrothed, flew in from Korea, and Clint’s brother Jake and his wife Trish flew in from HI. Round this out with Uncle Dick and Aunt Gloria coming in from MO, and Wes’s parents arriving from TN and we have the makings for a real shin dig. We had quite the hoo-ha. We all celebrated, rejoiced, and danced. Abbi cut quite a rug out on the dance floor. The presents were opened, the party ended and Caelun seemed no worse for ware. He was kissed , hugged, and breathed on by hundreds of people. He smiled, laughed and wiggled to the music right along with his sister,-not a sign of “broken-ness” to be had. We headed out on vacation to Niagara Falls and then New England. We hiked with the stroller, went to the marble museum, VT wild flower farm- the seediest place in VT, Horsford’s Nursury, Echo Science Center on Lake Champlain, and most importantly- Billing’s farm – so the kids could pet a cow, which was apparently the highlight for them. I said to Clint, “aren’t you glad we drove 800 miles and paid $7 each so the kids could pet a cow?” We certainly don’t have cows in MI- and certainly not Cedar Springs. “Yes honey but these cows have mountains behind them” was his response- true enough. We stopped in and had dinner with Abbi’s Aunt Kris, Uncle Brian and her 9 cousins. It was a lovely afternoon and evening. We headed home to attend my cousin Amanda Steinhoff’s college open house and spend a couple days with my family in Flint. We got back to the red flannel town at the end of June and Caelun still seemed to be fine- dare I say he was healthy and maybe even kind of cute.

July and August found us working on the house- new windows and siding, putting up a privacy fence, and working in the garden. We planted a winter hardy rose garden and learned how to “rose rustle” I would tell you where we rustled our cuttings from but then I would have to kill you. We actually had a majority of rose cuttings root but we didn’t get them potted because school started and our lives went into warp speed-- again next year. We spent a day at Crystal Lake with my Aunt Pat and Uncle Bill. We got a couple of weekends at our friends Dan and Amy’s cottage. Our old college friends Joel and Melissa Turmo and dear Dawn Landis came for a visit. We continued to sleep almost every night and still nothing seemed to be broken with our little boy.

School started in September. Our friend Pam Agnello is watching Cae for us. We miss Miss Kris, but when she moved out of town it just got difficult to get to her. Abbi started horseback riding lessons- a set of six, and she is playing flute for middle school band. She is also very into reptiles, so we have found ourselves at reptile shows taking pictures of snakes, lizards, and alligators. You are jealous, I know. The debate kids are doing well. Really well- we have won more trophies this year than any year since I have started coaching. The topic this year is alternative energy. My twenty year class reunion from Grand Blanc was the last weekend in September. Oh my gosh, how did all of those kids get to be so old? Me included. We went to Flint for the weekend and visited with friends and family as well as the reunion. Uncle David, Uncle Lee, and Aunt Susan watched Caelun while we went to my reunion. My dear friend/sister Missy and her boys spent the day with us on Sunday after our reunion, and we got to stop and see my cousin Heather, her husband Scott, their daughter Ashley and the new house they just bought. Bless my husband, he schlepped and took pictures – I guess it is like lobbying – he always tells me he comes to hold my purse.

Clint is taking another class towards his masters and I am taking world regional geography to make George Bush happy. Both Forest Hills and I think it would be great if I taught philosophy. I have had quite a bit of philosophy in my grad. rhetorical communication and argumentation studies. George Bush doesn’t think these 600 to 800 level classes count. He wants a social studies major for me to be highly qualified under NCLB. The history minor I have won’t work either. GVSU said to get a social studies major I needed macro and micro econ and world and US geography. That in conjunction with my history minor will give me a teachable highly qualified major enabling me to teach philosophy. I have completed both of the econ classes now so on to geography. I knew I should have went to DC in February. I will probably get these classes completed and NCLB will be repealed. I would be okay with that. Caelun continues to show no signs of his previous broken-ness

October brought lovely weather for Red Flannel Festival. The garden club did a plant sale as a fund raiser and split the proceeds with the library. We have canned and frozen hundreds of pounds of food from our garden. Clint has become quite the seed saver. It will be interesting next summer to see what we get back. We are madly trying to finish siding the new section of our house and building a new front porch. We had a wonderful Halloween. My dear god daughter Natasha Griffes came as a 50’s sock-hop girl and helped Caelun trick or treat. Caelun was a skunk- because all 18 month old little boys are inherently stinky. Abbi was a gory psycho, covered in fake blood, we had to take rubbing alcohol to get it off the next day, for family pictures. Dare I say it, knock on wood, and not to put a kinahara on it- Cae-Cae still seems to be very “unbroken”. We are cautiously optimistic that we have survived “the year of the broken baby”

November has come. Book club is going strong and I continue to be involved with the BOE and the Garden Club. I have cut this letter back a bit – hard to believe but this missive is now only 4 pages rather than 6. All of this and more is documented in great detail on our blog, that Clint would say has too many pictures and Rita and my dad, Bob, would say has not enough pictures. I average 7 to 10 posts a month and if you don’t have a computer you can access it from your local library. If you aren’t familiar a blog is short for a web log. In other words, an online journal with pictures. All of the posts stay there so you could check it once a month and not miss anything. It is all there: Cae and Abbi in their Halloween costumes, the garden, my debate kids with their trophies, and Clint’s students in the lab. I also list and rate all of our book club books if you are in a club and looking for suggestions.

We hope this finds you and yours well and in a state of “un-brokenness”. We are all enjoying our jobs and schools, our house and garden, our community, and most of all each other. May all of you have peace and harmony.

Holiday Salutations,

The Conley’s

Clint, Pam, Abbi, Caelun, Nutmeg, and Miss Kitty