Adam's Week

Well I'm not sure why, but blogger won't give me an option to upload a picture... I don't have any specific picture related to this post. Just wanted to post another cute picture of my little guy.

Anyway, Adam's "fun" week started out Tuesday night. He was in the bath when the phone rang. I stepped out of the bathroom for a minute to answer the phone. It was just Doug telling me he'd be working late. I went back into the bathroom and Adam's inguinal hernia had popped out. (I don't want to gross out squeamish people so if you're curious what that is just google it.)

Just as a side note, Adam's had this hernia for a while. We've been dealing with insurance changes so although we'd met with the surgeon at Children's, we hadn't actually scheduled the surgery yet. Usually it was soft and squishy and I could massage it back into place and he'd be just fine.

Tuesday night it was a hard bulge and he'd cry and squirm whenever I touched it. So I called the surgeon's office and the on call doc asked that I bring him down to the ER at Children's. I told Mary and Alex I was going to take them over to the neighbors' house. Mary was excited. Alex begged to go with me so I caved and let him come much to my later regret when he was running around the waiting area like a lunatic.

Poor Adam was in pain and just sat on my lap while I checked him in and while we sat in the waiting room. Every now and again he'd twitch a little bit or readjust his sitting position. At one point he decided to go try to play with the toys in the waiting room, but after limping over to some he wanted me to come get him.

A while later Alex had to go to the bathroom. The restroom had a regular toilet and then a teeny cute little one so Adam wanted to go potty too (sit there for 2 seconds and do nothing). I took off his diaper to let him go and lo and behold his hernia had popped back in all by itself. I checked with the gal at the desk and she checked with the surgeon to see if we could just go home, but he still wanted to see us. Adam then proceeded to also run around like a lunatic.

We finally got called back around 9:30ish (at least there was a TV in the room there to entertain the boys). The surgeon said he didn't need surgery immediately but that we should get it taken care of soon.

So Wednesday I called the surgeon's office to schedule surgery. The only day they had available for the whole month of July was Thursday. So I decided to take it. I hurried and got my work covered for me and found a friend to watch the kids. The friend I was planning on asking was at girls camp since she's the YW president, but I found another friend who was more than happy to do it. Alex was thrilled to go there too since one of the boys is in his primary class and they don't get to play as much as they'd like.

So Thursday morning arrives. Adam is not allowed to eat or drink anything except some apple juice a few hours before surgery. This kid almost always wakes up and asks for milk and pretzels first thing in the morning. He did ask for milk and was easily persuaded to take juice, but he didn't ask for food once that whole day. One of the other doctors walking around the surgery center even mentioned that he had "a lot of energy on no food." (During the actual surgery I was reading an Ensign article and realized that they Lord had just been "lightening my burden." It was hard enough to just keep him happy once they'd checked us in before the actual surgery started.)

The "receptionist" was a grandfatherly man who made an ID bracelet for Tiger too, which was really cute and made Adam more excited to get one. They let me go into the room with them until they put him under. He wasn't too thrilled with the mask even when we tried to let Tiger do it first. So we had to lay him down and put the mask on, which made him cry. That wasn't exactly the shining moment of my day.

The surgery took about an hour and a half. He had a hernia on both sides that had to be repaired. The left side was pretty straightforward and easy, but the right side was more complex than your typical hernia repair. Fortunately we had an excellent surgeon who is the chief of her division.

After the surgery they kept an eye on him for another 90 minutes or so. Most of that time he slept in my lap (it was nap time after all and he'd just been drugged). A 13-year-old boy was having the same surgery (one side only) and got out of surgery much sooner, but we left before he did. Of course maybe toddlers don't realize they're "supposed" to hurt down there as well as a 13-year-old would. Plus I could carry Adam out to the car. It'd be hard to carry a teenage boy.

Adam was running around mostly like normal at home that day. He even tried jumping on the bed. The only problem was that he was still a little whoozy from the anesthesia so we had to keep an eye on him so he wouldn't fall down the stairs or something like that. He's still a little sore occasionally so he still gets some Tylenol and Motrin a couple times a day, but otherwise he's doing just fine. He really is a healthy little boy.

I am very grateful for Steri-Strips... They're a wonderful invention. It looks kind of like tape they just put over the little incisions so he has no stitches or staples or something like that. You just wait several days and then they fall off on their own.

More importantly, I'm grateful that I don't have to go through this all the time. I honestly don't know how some parents handle the stress and worry of having their kids undergo a bunch of surgeries, especially really scary ones like open heart surgery or brain surgery. I do transcribe reports for a few pediatric neurosurgeons, and I've always felt sorry for those parents. I feel even more sympathy for them now that I've had to go through a little teeny bit of what they go through.

So here's hoping we'll have a much more fun week this week. And in a little over a week and a half we get to see "Gamma and Bampa" anyway so it's all good.

I Fought For You By The Sound Tank

I saw this on a friend's blog (thanks, Ammy) and it gave me chills. So I thought I'd pass it along.

Happy 4th of July!!!

The Biscuit of Zazzamarandabo Silly Song

Maybe I can get a video to work this time...

We borrowed Tomato Sawyer and Huckleberry Larry from the library a couple of weeks ago. The best part is this silly song. Mary and Alex think it's hilarious when they mistakenly go to the "Biscuit of Doug" instead. Adam walks around singing, "The bicuit. The bicuit." It's pretty cute.

He Got the Job!

I was sitting here working at my desk when I overheard Mary and Alex playing just outside my office door.

Mary was giving Ironhide (transformer) a job interview. Her ponies needed protection from a dinosaur. She asked him questions like, "You only attack dinosaurs, right? Not ponies?"

Boy toys and girl toys can mix...

Of course before I could finish typing this a disagreement popped up once again.

Good times, huh?

Kiddie Lit

I've always enjoyed reading to little kids, even when I was a teenager and got to read to my little sister Dani.

We do quite a lot of reading at our house, and now Mary even gets to share a lot of the load. (She even makes up her own voices for different characters.)

Reading can even feel like a sport...

Once Mary got to school I started learning more about kid books, especially chapter books. I've discovered that there are REALLY, REALLY good kid books, like Junie B. Jones (that girl is hilarious).

There are some so, so kids books that don't bother me if they keep Mary excited about reading. Like a whole bunch of books about girls who  help fairies when Jack Frost causes trouble. (The author is Daisy Meadows... sounds made up, doesn't it?)

Whoopi Goldberg even wrote a few books about a girl whose mother insists she takes ballet even though she wants to be a speed skater and wear funky clothes that her mother designed. I was pleasantly surprised!

Then there are fairly obnoxious kids books like the Pony Pals... They get all preachy about animals and almost make you want to be in favor of trapping animals because they are so soap boxish against it. (I'm certainly not an animal trapper, though I wouldn't have complained if someone had trapped the large fox that came traipsing across our front lawn the other day while I was outside scraping paint off the house.) Doug absolutely LOVES (or not) reading those books. Fortunately, the author wrote about 50 gazillion different books about these girls. (Beware... don't call their ponies "horses." Apparently that's a major faux pas.)

I do enjoy going to the library with the kids though... I've discovered some really great books just waltzing around the kids section. Mary's a tad too young for some of them still, but I've enjoyed them.

One of my recent discoveries in the past few years is this:

The books have wonderful names like "The Wrath of Ezra." By the way... Ezra is a toothpick!!

The last book in the series (5) came out last fall. I was fortunate to find a fabulous sale on the first 3 at Deseret Book a couple years ago so I own those ones. Someday I'll get the last two. They're definitely worth reading more than once. If you like kiddie lit at all you'll enjoy this book. It's a similar reading level to Harry Potter so if you have kids that age go check them out (or just read them yourselves).

Anyway...

Happy Reading!!!

Is it too mean...

to give away all my children's toys or sell them on ebay or craigslist??? Part of me is willing to just trash them, but that seems a bit rash if someone else could actually enjoy them. (Or some other parent can deal with them.)

I confess the maid experiment has not been as effective as I'd hoped. I'm tired of getting paid chump change to pick up after my children. A real maid would get paid way more! (They still wouldn't be paid what they were worth probably, but still way more than I'm getting at a nickle a toy.)

And there are still toys EVERYWHERE!!!!

If anyone has any other brilliant strategies to transform my kids into toy picking up fanatics, please feel free to share them.

I Did It For Cindy!

Cindy is one of the 15-20 or so women I work with, though I've never actually met her. We all live scattered throughout the country and do everything over the internet. So we just chat through instant messenger and e-mail. While we haven't had time to get to know each other well in person, it's always nice to know I have a friend who is typing about bladder repairs or brain surgery or disc herniations at the same time I am.

For the past several months Cindy's been struggling with cancer. Through it all she still has time to think of others. She even sent us a card when my father-in-law passed away even though she was just getting done with surgery and starting to plan for chemo and all that not so fun stuff we all hope we never have to go through.

There's not too much I can do for her except type some of her reports when she's getting chemo or gets major vertigo and can't sit and type very well.

However, a few weeks ago I realized it was high time to cut my hair. I hadn't cut it in ages and I knew it was too long and hot to survive through the summer. (Hopefully summer will actually come to Colorado. We had snow again last week for crying out loud.)

Pantene works with the American Cancer Society to make wigs for women who lose their hair during chemotherapy. You can read more about it here... Beautiful Lengths

They require at least 8 inches, and fortunately I had 9 I could donate.

So in honor of Cindy (who already has a wig from others who have donated) I will be sending a 9 inch ponytail to Beautiful Lengths to help someone else who is struggling with cancer.

Mary told me I look like Elastigirl. Too bad I don't get to be super stretchy and bendy to go along with the haircut. She did later tell me that only my HAIR looked like Elastigirl so I guess that's why I didn't get the super powers and the fact that I'm not a cartoon.

Anyway... If you feel like letting your hair grow out or you've already let your hair grow out and now want it cut... send it on over to Beautiful Lengths. Or even if you don't have that much hair, I've heard hair is great for cleaning up oil spills so you can send it to the Gulf.

Cindy... You're always in our thoughts and prayers!