So Allow Me to Recap...

A week and a half ago, Elijah was sent home from daycare with a fever.

Four days later, I awoke to the great morning sound of a good rainstorm. That...and Noah yelling "Mooommmm, I just barfed in my bed."

Two solid days of Noah doing more of the same followed.

Then Caleb had his tonsils out. We have spent a week getting him recovered from that. That included two days of an incoherent child followed by five days of a very hungry, rapidly shrinking child who refuses to eat and is down about 5-6 pounds. That, by the way, when you are a skinny 7-year-old, amounts to about 10% of your body weight.

And today, I got an email from school that head lice has been making the rounds and they found nits on dear Noah.

Can I please play the "enough already" card?

Dance Party - Noah and Elijah Style

Taking a break from tonsil recovery (which, no, hasn't been fun) to share some recent boy dance party fun courtesy of Elijah and Noah.

Surving a tonsillectomy

Today was the big day. The day of tonsil removal history. Well, at least for Caleb. For those of you who haven't had the fine fortune to spend much time with the boy, let me give you the brief history. As an infant, Caleb was the classic chronic-ear infection kid. Two sets of tubes seemed to be helping that until we realized he wasn't really hearing us. We had moved to Minnesota by that time and tool him to see Dr. Malone. After a hearing test, it was confirmed. No he wasn't just a complete and total 2-year-old ignoring us, he was a 2-year-old ignoring us who also couldn't hear us. An x-ray then revealed he had adenoids that, according to her, would rival the worst of the worst in an adult. We had them removed. But at that age, you really don't have tonsils and even if you do, and have them removed, they are likely to stay put.

So the tonsils remained.

And while the ear infections went away for the most part, the Strep Throat began. And the snoring. And snoring and snoring and snoring. Earlier this spring, Brian, on a whim asked to look inside Caleb's mouth. He was so shocked by what he say that, without thinking he nearly yelled "OH MY GAWD!" Yes, his tonsils touched in the middle. We both confessed we never really knew what tonsils looked like, let alone enlarged ones, until we saw those. Yuck.

We took him back to Dr. Malone who recommended we consider removing them. And so that brings us to today.

Caleb was a trooper. Leading up to this, he has been the most concerned about waking up during his surgery. We seemed to have done an adequate job convincing him that wouldn't happen and he agreed to be brave.

We were supposed to have a morning surgery time. Brian is off Wednesday mornings, so this would work perfectly. Until we got the call that indicated when they said "morning" that could really mean anything up until 11:45 a.m. Which is the time we got. And the poor kid can't eat after midnight. And, given that time, Brian can no longer make it there. Aye aye aye.

We headed to the surgery center and Caleb got checked in and changed into their pajamas.

We had to wait for the surgeon who was running late. So we didn't get taken back into surgery until about 1:30 p.m. Caleb was thrilled.

I also suited up to take him back into surgery. Caleb liked my hat and thought we should document it.

I was shocked when they came to get us and Caleb just willingly got up and followed along to the OR. As soon as we got back in the room, they asked him to hop up on the table and Caleb announced he had to go to the bathroom. They all questioned, "REALLLY?" And Caleb was insistent, "REALLY." So one of the nurses took him. After they left the room, they shared that last week they had a kid lock themselves in the bathroom. But to his credit, a minute later, Caleb walked back in and hopped up on the bed. The doctor shared that last week, he had a girl who was about to count all the way to 33 with the mask on. He wondered if Caleb could beat her. Caleb responded, "Probably not."

Caleb smeared bubblegum lipsmacker all over the mask and put it on his face to start counting. "1-2-3-4..." He kept going, "33-34-35-36..." And going, "43-44-45...33...33...thiiirty-threeee..." At which point the doctor said, "And 100, he is out." I gave him a kiss and headed out.

A mere 40 minutes later, they came and got me. Caleb was a bit sad and out of it, but doing amazingly well. We had bought him a little Tetris game which he requested (He calls it "Tantagrams") pretty quickly.

He played and rested for about a half an hour and had a popsicle.

And then, I finally got a smile.

We got him dressed and headed home. And he's been resting well since. We can only hope the rest of is recovery goes as smoothly as today went.

Life with boys

This was the shirt that greeted me (on Caleb) when I picked him up from school tonight. When I asked him why in the world his shirt looked like that, his response was "Because I was sliding on my belly in the dirt."

Of course, now I understand.

Welcome to my life.

Driving Caleb home from school yesterday, we drove by a relatively busy intersection at Snelling and Summit Avenue. This intersection is quite close to Macalester College a rather progressive college in the area. For whatever reason, be it the high traffic of the area or the college, this particular corner seems to attract an ongoing steady stream of people holding up homemade signs stating their views about a variety of topics.

Often people are holding up "Free Palestine" signs.

Caleb asked me about the signs yesterday. I explained that it said "Free Palestine." He asked me what Palestine was and why it wasn't free and I told him that was a complicated question that, I have to admit, I don't even really know the answer to.

He then asked why people were standing there with signs. I said that, again, for whatever reason, that was a corner a lot of people seemed stand at to share their opinions and beliefs about things. That the signs people hold there are communicating something about what they believe in. It might be who to vote for, or opinions about a country or policy, but their hope was that in standing there, people would see them and their about their beliefs. And maybe even start to believe them themselves.

Caleb thought about that for a moment and then said.

"So like, I could stand there with a sign that says, "Monsters are real."

And, once again, I was glad I was driving and he couldn't see my amused smile.

As I shared the story with Brian, he laughed as well and said to me, "Yes, Caleb and you'd be right up there with our old friends from Chicago:

"Al-Gore-is-dead-and-a-communist-imposter-is-posing-as-him-dude"

Nattily-dressed-walking-man

And "The Hi Guy"

Don't Be A Chicken - Noah's YouTube Debut

Noah helped us out with a video for work. Here is the finished product.