Science Guy

What do you do when your 8 year-old carries a turkey bone around with him? I cooked a turkey on Sunday and Holland was fascinated with the leg bone. I found it upstairs and asked super-hero dad to get rid of it. The next day, he pulled it out of his coat pocket at the therapist's office. Lovely. Let's show off our turkey bone.

He's also been doing a lot of experiments lately. Everything is fair game. He found some popsicle molds and decided he would freeze juice we had brought home from the hospital in those little cups. I said fine he could do that. The next day, he pulls them out of the freezer and told me we could only eat the two on the end because the other 4 were actually colored water. I asked him where he got the food coloring from. He had used ink from a marker to color the water. I'm going to have to put Poison Control on my speed dial. I cannot keep up with him. He wants to freeze things in ice cube trays. He uses syringes to pump water and see if he can get it to shoot something off the end and if so, how far. One day he put 4 different kinds of hair gels, creams and waxes in his hair because he wanted it spikey. It took two days of washing to get it all out. He collected chunks of ice from our 1950's freezer in a fridge we defrosted over the weekend. He wanted to build something out of the ice. But before he remembered he wanted to do that, the ice melted on the table.

Wanna come help me clean up?

Big Plan Gone Kaput

I haven't exercised once! I'm not kidding. I had this whole big plan of swimming at the club three times a week and walking with a friend the other two (sorry jaqui!)
I cannot believe how much time is spent in the car. After I get Holland on the bus at 8:25, I tell the other two to jump in the van and we head out at 8:35. It's about a 15 minute drive to Romania's school. Then Holland gets off school at 2:00. It used to be 1:00 and the bus would drop him off at 1:05 (he was the only passenger), but now he's not the naughtiest kid on the bus, so it takes him 45 minutes to get home! I could drive to the school 5 times and pick him up in that amount of time. We live about 3 minutes from the school. But I can't be out running errands because the bus driver may have fewer kids on board and he could get dropped of anywhere from 2:15 to 2:45. It's like waiting for a repairman ("between 10 and 3 we'll be there").

So the past 3 weeks I've had a zillion doctor appointments, been to the pharmacy countless times, post office, grocery store, library and oh yeah, two days in the hospital. Then there are parent/teacher conferences (which got rescheduled because of the 1/4 inch of snow we had yesterday and the district freaked out and cancelled school), the parent night at Romania's new school and Women's Bible Study (not a bad thing!) So, basically I'm home less than I was before. My house is still a wreck (still haven't washed those curtains) and I haven't seen the inside of the gym yet. Maybe I could lose weight from the STRESS of it all!! and then I wouldn't even have to exercise!

Play Ball!

Today was Romania's first basketball game. He's only had 3 practices, so I wasn't expecting Air Jordan. His team did warm ups and then lined the boys up and told them who they were defending. Romania stayed on his man, both for offense and defense. It was funny. He just ran from one end of the court to the other. He did actually get to dribble the ball and shoot it twice. But as soon as he got hold of the ball, he lobbed it off to someone else. Meanwhile on the sidelines, Egypt is crawling all over Holland, dancing for the spectators and cheering for her brother. Here are some pictures of the festivities.

Good Night!

Tonight Egypt wanted to say goodnight to Dad and Romania. I asked if she knew how to sign that. (Daddy's deaf, so all the kids are learning sign). She said, "Yes. Like this!" This is a picture of her signing "I love you" for 'goodnight'. Love it.

Child Labor

I don't know why, but 2 of my 3 kids love to vacuum! No complaints here. But I'm always watchful with my $400 vacuum. It sounds ridiculous to have paid that much for a vacuum. But totally worth it! Here's Egypt cleaning up after the lunch crowd.

Blurt!

At dinner tonight, everyone seemed to be talking at the same time. Finally I just said, "Everybody stop talking I can't hear anything, and it's rude!" Romania looked at me and said, "Blurt!"

I'm learning new vocabulary from Romania and his new charter school. His teacher keeps a tally of how many 'blurts' the kids have during a school day. Their goal each day is to have fewer than the day before. He'll come home and tell me, "We only had 8 blurts today!" If the kids have few enough 'blurts', then they get a little popcorn treat at the end of the week.

The foreign language project

With Holland and Romania in school most of the day, I've decided I need a project to keep me busy. And keep me from cleaning the house. I love to sew and just bought a wonderful Baby Lock sewing machine. It has tons of decorative stitches, easy buttonholes and with the push of a button, it cuts the thread (it really is a big deal). Over the Christmas break, I bought a pattern for sewing girl's clothes off http://www.etsy.com/. I was getting so tired of not finding anything I liked in the regular pattern books, so I went hunting for something different. I found something very different. I bought a pattern book written entirely in Japanese. Too bad I can't read Japanese. But the pictures are very clear, so I can probably do it. Just have to figure out how much yardage, transfer all the pattern pieces to tissue and cut the pieces with 5/8" seam allowance. No biggie. Then Egypt will be stylin' (like that's a problem)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

Holland's surgery is over. We're home and focusing on doing quiet activities for the next few days. The surgery was quick - only an hour. The doctor came out with a gross, but cool picture of his spine and where they cut. It's just incredible to be able to see (in color!) inside someone's body. The hardest thing for Holland wasn't being operated on, but lying flat after he came out of the anesthesia. (It took 2 hours for him to wake up. If he sat up too much, or moved around, he could get a spinal headache. I knew that he would have trouble with this. He complained almost the entire time. We were able to snag a DVD/Game Cube cart and he played that for awhile. But he really just wanted to get out of bed.

Monday night my sister and her family came to the hospital to visit. The kids had made cards and wanted to give them to Holland. My neice ("Ramona" on my sister's blog) wrote a very nice story for Holland. She even included blank sheets of paper so he could add his own pictures. If you were listening to this story, you'd be impressed wtih how many ideas she has. She loves to write about what's happened to her. If you were listening, you'd also miss the spelling of the word 'we'. Last summer their family got a Nintendo Wii (pronounced 'we'). Ramona uses 'wii' for 'we'. It's like looking at a teenager's spelling texting on a phone.

Holland had a nice visit with his cousins. He had been having trouble with the catheter tape coming off his leg (got a picture in your head of that, yet?) ouch. So when the kids were leaning on the bed, I told them to be very careful of the tube hanging down the side of the bed. Ramona asked what it was for. Holland's answer: "You don't wanna know." The adults got a good chuckle out of that!

The only real glitch in the two days there was a wake-up call at 4 a.m. Our night nurse came in every two hours to check vitals and see if he could still move his toes. We knew there was a possibility of sharing a room with another patient. But when our nurse came in at 3:50 a.m. and said she had bad news, I couldn't have predicted what she said. There was a new patient coming in that had an infectious disease. They didn't want us to have to share a room. So we packed up and moved to a room next door. I walked, half-asleep, into the room next door in my jammies, slippers and bed head, knocked over a garbage can and got back in the sagging bed 8 inches off the floor. (You really don't go to a hospital to recover. Well, maybe a mental hospital).

But we are so glad to be home, in our own beds (it's 8.30 and Holland's still asleep! yeah!). Thankful and grateful for all your prayers and words of encouragement through this.

Conversation with a Caveman

My super-hero husband got a gift card from his office at Christmas. He's worried it's going to expire so this morning while I was juggling frosting cookies for a memorial service, telling Egypt to stop bothering the boys and stirring the noodles I was cooking, he asks me what I need at the store because he's going out.
me (thinking): I don't need anything right now and can't even stop to answer this question intelligently.
me: Why don't you get a new paper shredder? This one doesn't work.
him: Yes it does. I just used it the other day and it works fine.
me: How many times did you shred the paper before it actually cut it?
him: Three.
me: Ok. It doesn't work. Get a new one.
him: I would rather spend the money on something we need.
me: Ok. Can you buy some Levi's for Holland, size 8?
him: He doesn't really need any new pants. Let's wait until he grows some more.
me: Why are you asking me what I need if you're not going to buy what I tell you?

A Tour of the Hospital

Today I picked Holland up from school and we went over to the hospital to pre-register and to take a tour of where he'll be having surgery. The nurse who called me yesterday said that kids really benefit from seeing where they will be and getting familiar with all the equipment and meeting staff. I was planning to tell him on Sunday, but felt he would really benefit from seeing all this. He wants to live there now.

After a boring 45 minutes of answering questions and filling out forms, we were taken over to the pediatric unit and given a great tour of all the rooms he'd be in and even got to peek into the O.R. He'll be staying overnight and we got to see the kind of room he'd be in after surgery. The most important part of his recovery is he has to stay flat for 24 hours or he could get a spinal headache. My mom had this kind of headache after delivering her children. It's not a fun thing to experience so I'm really hoping he stays down. The most thrilling thing for him (his eyes looked like big saucers after he heard this) was finding out they have Nintendo, Game Cube and countless cable channels of television for him. He gets to lay in bed and play Game Cube. He wants to move in there.

I asked if there was anything special to eat he wanted me to bring. He said, "tacos and a big can of corn." What a sensible guy.

Finally, an answer and a decision

One more post today. I think three posts in one day is crazy enough. But here goes.
I got a call from the microneurosurgeon's office today. We are scheduled for surgery on Monday, January 14th. She's sending the paperwork for check-in. It will seem more real this weekend, I'm sure. I checked with my pediatrician, who has caught all of Holland's issues early on. I trust her opinion about these things and she has said she believes it's the right decision.

The surgery takes a couple of hours and I get to stay in the hospital with him. I'm so grateful for that. I'm looking forward to hospital bed-head. He goes home on Tuesday and should be up and around in three to four days. It's so nice to have an end in sight. Of course, I am still praying for total healing before this!

Uh-Oh

I should have known that public school was going to be a gold mine for blog posts. When I picked Romania up from the bus hub today, he had paperwork for me to look at. I was expecting to see forms for registration and a supplies list. He hands me a paper that screams "I was in trouble". Official-looking paper with all these boxes checkmarked, handwritten notes, instructions for the parents.

Since Romania has never been to public school, he hasn't really had experience with standing in line, raising his hand, etc. We've done all our schoolwork at a desk in the schoolroom. He's never had to wander all over a classroom looking for supplies.
Today, another student reminded him to walk with his scissors pointed down. He told me he was afraid he would poke himself, so he didn't want to do that. He was too angry to explain himself at school and ended up throwing the scissors. He gets angry and has trouble coming back down, so I wasn't surprised (more embarrassed) that he couldn't dig himself out of this. At least the first three days were rock solid!

When we got home, I helped him write letters of apology to the student and his teacher. Just yesterday in Sunday School, he made a little booklet called "Wise Words" and drew pictures of himself in those situations. I guess he'll have to take that with him to remember what to do.

Stay tuned for more exciting public school adventures!

Down to One

I'm going on Day #4 of just having one child at home. I've accomplished a few things I wanted to, but still haven't made it to the gym for my exercise. It was actually snowing when I left the house to take Romania to school and there was no way I was going to go walking! I've done things like mail ebay packages, do loads of laundry, make phone calls, clean the kitchen, vacuum. All those normal things that other people can get done when they're not homeschooling!

I am still feeling naked without all of them here. When Holland went to school, it was a little different because so much tension left the house when he went to school. But with Romania leaving, I'm still feeling torn. Today I was getting ready to do some puzzles with Egypt and she said to me, "I want "Holland" and "Romania" to come home." I wasn't even thinking she had noticed they weren't around. She's usually making so much fuss over what they're doing or not doing. That made me even more sad.

Big Mess

Sometimes I want to rip up the carpet in my house and throw it in the washing machine. Either that, or just rip it up. Having three kids, you're bound to have things spill on the floor. Someone "forgets" and brings hot cocoa into the family room. They start horsing around and then it gets spilled. Egypt has taken to changing her own diaper. Not the urine soaked ones; the other kind. Yes, it does make for a messy floor. She uses about 20 wipes to get it all off.

Today's mess had nothing to do with kids spilling stuff. My cat, who is about 15 years old, likes to hang out in our room. She lounges on the bed (or under it if she doesn't want to be bothered). Lately she has been throwing up. At first I thought it was just hairballs, but it's actually food. (gross, I know) During Egypt's non-nap today, I kept hearing noises upstairs. I went up, and there is my cat throwing up on the carpet. Two minutes before that, she had been laying on an old blanket that Egypt had spread out for us to play on. Why couldn't the cat have thrown up ON the blanket? Now I have a huge gross spot right on the carpet. If we were to sell our house, the people would think we lived like animals with all the stains on the carpets, drawings on the walls, broken molding and peeling paint.

Update on Surgery

We finally got a call last night about Holland's CT scan and the spinal x-ray. Not only is tethered cord a real possibility, but he has scoliosis in two places on his spine. We are going forward with surgery, praying that it will help correct the scoliosis as well as his bowel problems. I finally feel like we are moving forward. I covet your prayers on this!

I love school!

This is what I got out of Romania on his first day:
me: What did you do?
him: I don't know.
me: Well, did you do any writing?
him: Yes.
me: Ok. Did you do any math?
him: No.
me: Did you get to go play outside?
him: Yes! We went outside two times.
me: What was your favorite thing you did?
him: We had two snack times and ate lunch. Mr. John (his teacher) also told us the joke of the day and I got POPCORN!
me: Oh good. You got popcorn.
him: Yea. I really don't think I learned anything.

He did tell me one thing I'm happy about. They actually do the Pledge of Allegiance! Can you believe it? A public school doing the Pledge of Allegiance. Bet the ACLU will be on this one.

Yesterday before I drove him to school, this is the conversation we had:
him: I think I'm going to be funny and tell jokes to make people laugh
me: Maybe you shouldn't do that the first day.
him: Okay. I'll do it the second day.
(such concrete thinking comes from his dad!)
I'll let you know how his joke-telling went.

First Day of School

Today was Romania's first day of school at the Charter school. He was so excited, he was ready to leave the house at 7:50. We didn't need to leave until 8:20. It's about 10 miles away and takes about 20 minutes. We were the first ones there! The principal greeted us and took us into the gym to wait for the busload of students coming in. Since this was the first day back from break, she wanted to remind everyone of the rules and introduce new students. Romania sat right with his class like he'd been there all year. One thing I can say about his personality is that he's not afraid to go into a new situation. He just starts talking to kids and then he's got a "new best friend".

It would have been nice not to have Egypt and Holland with me. They were all over the place; complaining of hunger, boredom, stomachaches, rolling around on the floor, asking to take things home that didn't belong to us. I just wanted to stand there and watch Romania in his new surroundings and take it all in. But how can you do that when a three year-old is complaining that you're hurting her arm - very loudly.

I showed Romania a picture of his teacher online last night. This morning Romania spotted him in the hall and shouted "hey, there's Mr. Vogel!" He's the only male teacher there and right away I liked him. He's very friendly and seems easy-going. Not the kind of person to overreact to little boys moving around.

Romania gets out of school at 3:33. He wanted to ride the bus home. I can't wait to hear all about his first day at school!

Gimme A 'Q'

I'm all about a good quote. I try to change my daily quote, well, daily. There are so many great sayings by great authors. I loved my literature courses in college and tend to gravitate toward those "older" authors.

I have a giant wall in my living room. It's so big that our 9 foot Christmas tree could grow another 7 feet and it still wouldn't reach the ceiling. For years I've had this queen size quilt I made hanging there. Saturday I just got tired of looking at it and decided the wall needed a new face. So I used my new Cricut machine to cut out letters, put some sticker adhesive on the back and voila! A new and improved wall.

Say What?

Last night we spent the evening at a friend's house to watch the big Beaver game. Of course, that's not why I go. I go so I can have adult conversation. I could care less about watching a football game. So we packed up the kids, the DVD player, the food, Legos and a couple toys for good measure. The whole point is to leave stuff so you can go back, right?

There were about 8 teenagers and then my three (8, 6 and 3), plus all the adults. The host and I were the only hearing adults. The rest were deaf or hard-of-hearing. I've been in the deaf community for 18+ years. But I still can't get used to how the deaf "talk straight". That means that they just say what's on their mind. It's not meant to be offensive, but when you don't grow up this way, it always feels weird to have someone say something to you that any normal hearing person would only think! Holland was getting pretty rambunctious - wrestling with his brother, rolling on the floor with his sister and basically running around in circles while doing sommersaults. One of the men looked at me and signed "maybe you should think about cutting out his sugar." Just matter-of-fact. Not meant to be insulting, but with everything that's going on with Holland, I hate to have the obvious pointed out to me. I notice it everyday. I rarely need help noticing everything he does. I told him it wasn't sugar and he looked shocked.

So the next time you're ready to accuse some mother of letting her kid run wild, just remember this story. It's not always under a parent's control how her child behaves. But it is under your control how you respond to it. We don't need any more reminding of how crazy it is.

microneurosurgeon (that's a mouthful)

Well, we finally had our last appointment with the microneurosurgeon today. I was hoping to come away with more answers, but ended up with more questions. She asked more extensive explanations of details that I couldn't even remember. Everything's become a blur when you answer questions over and over. Many questions I can't even answer because I don't know the family history of diseases.

She tested his reflexes, in which he's always shown a weakness. He has a pidgeon-toed walk and can't bend down to touch his toes bending from the waist. She showed me his x-ray and where the Spina Bifida was. Also during the exam, she noticed a slight bend in his spine. Can you believe it? She thinks he has sciolosis on top of all this! We were sent down to diagnostics and he had another x-ray done standing to view his spine. And he also had a CT scan to check for anything that might have been missed up til this point.

I asked her what would happen if we didn't do the surgery. She said his bowel problems would continue and we could just treat it with Miralax and some fiber. There is not a 100% test to diagnose tethered cord. Only through surgery will she know if the tightness of his spinal cord is a problem. There isn't even a guarantee that having the surgery would clear up the problem if it turns out to be tethered cord. She said he has so many of the symptoms of tethered cord (spina bifida; possible scoliosis; pidgeon toe walk; little or no reflexes; can't bend down; back pain; bowel/urination problems) that it's hard not to think that's what is causing all his problems.

So for now we are waiting to see what she finds out from the x-ray and CT we had done today.