Two Headed Baby!

We sighted this odd sight on the lacrosse field this evening...watch out, that's double the drool!

LAX!

It's finally begun. JT had his second Lacrosse practice today and it's going quite well. Turns out, he's almost as good with a lacrosse stick in his hands as he is with a soccer ball between his feet. His speed is definitely an advantage in this sport and he's learning to handle the stick well. Eventually I'll learn all the new vocabulary so I can yell from the sidelines without embarrassing him too much. I think he looks so athletic in all those pads... And I also think the word check is a rather weak word considering its actual meaning seems to be "license to use a stick to beat the doo-doo out of your opponent." Yeah, check - this isn't your usual chess game, baby!

Rub A Dub Dub

Three Men In a Tub!

Is that a....CURL?!

UP there, to the left...Some of you may think I'm pushing it here but there is more bounce to this boy's bangs than all of our white children put together. I'm thinkin' on a rainy day he may even be called a bit curly-headed! Of course, he needs a bit more HAIR to really be able to tell but I think Aunt Great can break out the Someone-finally-takes-after-me dance!

World's Best Parents!!

We won! We won! Fr. Joel found this sign tacked to our bedroom door when he came home from work last night:

For those who can't read the fine print, the front of it says Winner Winner Best Mom and Dad In The World see back for details. When you turn this fine document over you find this: Come downstairs and pick a prize! No Purchases included Prizes: ball, pen, mint, hard candy and chocolate, or party popper.

I picked the hard candy and Fr. Joel got himself a heart-shaped piece of chocolate. There's nothing like the sweet rewards of parenting....

DOD - What's a Mom to do?

With Fr. Joel off teaching seminary class today, I took the whole crew to Wal-Mart - that's two carts, each with a baby and 6 tag-alongs. We were going through the store looking rather large familyish, if ya know what I mean, and Miss. ADD was being particularly troublesome either wandering off in the wrong direction or forgetting to move anywhere and so I was rather preoccupied with her while David, the 2 1/2 yo, was running about being basically good in a twoish sort of way. I headed off to find myself a pregnancy test (don't get excited - these are part of my regular shopping list - see "Why We Let God Plan Our Family") and everyone was sort of milling about me causing a bit of a traffic jam when I looked down and noticed that David was thoughtfully turning over a box in his hands which he'd pulled from the shelf. About this time, a woman came around the corner with her three teens, took in the whole scene and her eye landed on David's box the same time mine did. We both noticed together that he was holding a box of condoms. I sort of sheepishly took them from his hand and replaced them on the shelf all the while grinning at this woman and wondering *what* she was going to say. She chuckled at us, looked at me and exclaimed, "He's trying to say no more brothers and sisters!"

Normally I would have been very offended by that comment but she was so good-natured about it and, really, that one *is* kind of hard to get around gracefully...

This, too, shall pass

Fr. Joel ran out the door this evening with 5 of the kids in tow (well, 8 if you count the neighbor kids who went along) for their Wednesday evening church class. I decided it would be great fun to have a wagon walk with the remaining crew and they were more than happy to join in. John Michael had his neighborhood bike-riding debut and was so thrilled in his stunt man helmet, riding on the street where the big kids ride. David thought he might venture the trip on his tricycle but after he tip-toed 20 feet down the driveway, he ditched his helmet and trike for a seat in the wagon. Adora pushed the twins in the double stroller and Betsy zipped along on her bike. We got about 4 houses up the street when Pooka suddenly realized we had left without HER (surely this was a mistake on our part) and she came busting out of the door and running down the street after us. I managed to rally the dog and left Adora standing in the middle of the street, collar in hand, wrangling the rest of the crew while I ran home for a leash - dog 1, humans 0.

The leash hangs on the side of Sydney's table who squawked at me when I came near and it took me a moment to convince him that birds just don't go on wagon walks....

Once we finally got it all together we must have been quite a sight as all the neighbors had the usual comments to make at our passing "You have your hands full", "that's quite a crew tonight", "Can't the dog pull the wagon?" (well, no, because that would actually be helpful...). I was sorry I hadn't brought the camera - if for no other reason than to permanently record the determined joy on JM's face as he maneuvered his bike from one curb crash to the next. He's such a boy...Then, as if we weren't having enough fun, I got a call on my cell phone from my dear husband. The conversation went something like this...

Hi

Hi

Um, apparently Ruth swallowed a coin.

Where did she get a coin?

I don't know but she swallowed one. She's standing here not telling me much about it.

What do you want me to do?

Um, I don't know but I'm in the middle of teaching 10 boys how to make scrambled eggs.

Ok, tell her to sit down somewhere and I'll come get her...


Fortunately I had my super secret crisis weapon right there with me - her name is Adora. We managed to get JM, the dog, the stroller and the wagon back into the driveway where I ditched all of my responsibilities into the hands of my most capable Crisis Manager to go rescue my daughter from the coin lodged somewhere between her tonsils and her bowels. I put in calls to both her pediatrician and her hematologist (hey, how am I supposed to know if coin swallowing can trigger a crisis?!). The hemo called back first so we went to his ER, at the suggestion of our parish nurse (who at one point worked in our local ER and we had long ago discussed that this was no place for a child with sickle cell to receive any kind of emergency care). An hour of driving and two and a half hours in the ER later, we were told that the coin had made it past the esophagus and into the stomach. This was a good thing as now she won't require surgery and this, too, shall pass....

(Now please pray with me that she doesn't remember to flush the toilet for the first time in her life over the next five days!)

In Defense of Icecream

When I was a kid one of my favorite family times was Sunday evenings. We always had icecream for dinner and we got to watch tv (a rare event) while we ate it at the "stack tables". We always watched the Muppet Show (my sister went on to become a professional puppeteer for a season..) and Marlin Perkins' Wild Kingdom (thought it was soo cool when my dad got to have dinner with him one night on a business trip in Vegas! lol).

So...fast forward to many years later with our own family I've decided to keep up the tradition and no one is complaining. Since we follow Feingold strictly, we can only have Breyer's icecream which is $$$ so I watch for sales and stock up when it's Buy 1/Get 1 Free. We have a freezer full of Breyer's most of the time. We make homemade chocolate fudge sauce and sometimes homemade whipped cream and pile it high! The really neat thing is that we've been able to use it for some great fellowship. Since my dh is an associate pastor at our church, we often will invite different church families over on Sunday evenings for "dinner". It is sooo easy and it's been such a blessing. Just tonight we had our neighbors over who have 4 kids and we didn't even notice the extra mouths and we got to have a long overdue grown up conversation with the parents.

I occasionally have a small niggling guilt about one thing. My mom would have icecream for supper because *her* time for hospitality and fellowship was always the afternoon meal after church. She would put on a big roast and invite folks over for a meal after church. So we always had a nice, big healthy meal at lunchtime (not to mention got to hang out with some really neat people over the years). The lunch tradition at our house, however, is "bunny noodles" with cut-up hotdogs which dh always makes (and which I call Dude Food - yuck!). So, not so healthy or substantial but...oh well, I'm over it! And that's my 2 cents about Icecream For Dinner. I wouldn't call that being a bad mom - I would call that winning the motherload of cool mom points. My kids are certainly the envy of all their friends on Sunday evenings....

DOD

I have a new title for my posts - DOD - Davidism of the Day. I figure he's just so funny I may as well give him his own category of posts here. So....here is today's D.O.D:

Philip was emptying out all the trashcans in the house and he had left the bathroom trashcan with the lid separated from the can while he went to fetch a bag. This is how David found it when he wandered into the bathroom. I heard him call out, "Ooooh Philip!!....the trashcan....you broke it in half!" He then put the whole exclamation to song and wandered off through the house singing his Philip broke the trashcan in half song...

Rockin' and Rollin'

Nathan is 7 months old now and he's mastered rockin' and rollin'. Here's some pics to let you in the fun!

ROCKIN'!



ROLLIN'!

New Do

I don't know what I was thinking but I always had these wonderful dreams of having a little black girl with that fun nappy hair to learn to braid and put into a thousand wonderful creations of hairy nappiness and my adorable child would skip gleefully about, happy to have a head full of colorful plaits topped with rows of beads and fun barettes. It's not like that at all. For those of you with similar delusions, let me set the record straight. It may eventually look right cute with even rows of braids and colorful doo-dads, but the process of getting there is a mother-daughter rite of passage which every black woman looks back upon still smarting from the thousands of stabbing pains to her scalp over the years. Ruth is no exception. "Doing her hair" is a dreaded phrase in our household and involves several hours of, well, great pain, great wailing and moaning and a lot of hair grease. Adora and I decided on the spur of the moment yesterday to solve that problem for the discernable future and bought Ruth her first Perm. Adora applied perm to scalp today and we are all quite pleased with the results. I was amazed with the ease with which her hairbrush ran through her hair today with NO WHINING, crying, crocodile tears or painful fidgeting and scratching. Alleluiah! Here's the pictures of Ruth's Great Perm Adventure and the resulting New Do (notice, if you will, the broad smile on Ruth's face).

SPOP!

S.P.O.P. - noun. 1. acronym which stands for Small Pieces of Oriental Plastic 2. the sound SPOP makes when sucked up in a vacuum cleaner

Before and After

Well, it's time to answer the question everyone wants to know...

How is Philip?!

Philip is great! And to prove it, I'm posting his before and after pictures. Thanks to the prayers of our many, many friends and family his recovery has actually gone remarkably, miraculously perhaps, well. His surgeon is truly surprised at the lack of bleeding, oozing, swelling and bruising (and boy are those four words fun to say all together in a row like that!). He had some stitches on the outer part of his lip where the lip revision was done. Those were removed on Monday and a little bit of swelling, redness and scarring can still be seen in that area. The inside of his mouth where the fistula was repaired and the bone graft put in is full of the nifty dissolvable stitches which are still quite prominent. The place on his hip where the bone was removed for the graft has about an inch and a quarter long scar which was actually glued together. There are two layers of stitches internally and the outer layer of skin was, well, super glued back on. Ask Philip about it, he'd be glad to show you that scar. After all, not many kids can say a doctor removed part of his hip bone and glued him back together!

Mobility-wise he's doing fantastic as well. He limps now only when he's trying to elicit sympathy and he's been pain-free since a few days after the surgery. So the biggest problem is that he is not allowed to engage in any activity that may result in a jarring of the graft site for another 4 1/2 weeks. He looks fine, feels fine but is very limited in what he is allowed to do and is stuck on a soft diet.

Well enough of the gory details, now for the gory photos. This is a picture of his lip before the surgery. Notice the right side has a bit of a peak left by the scar from his prior surgery. I had a great picture of Philip smiling but it just didn't capture that peak as well so you get his serious look here.

And in this picture the peak is gone. There is a bit of redness where they removed the stitches and it is still a wee bit swollen but there is a discernable difference in the shape of his lip.

Here is the before picture of his palate. If you look closely you can see a thin scar running all through the middle of the palate. That was from the first surgery which closed the original cleft which ran all the way from the front of his mouth to the very back of his palate. This picture shows the fistula - or small hole - left by the previous two surgeries. It's barely discernable behind that tooth. The crooked little tooth under my thumb is the site of the bone graft.
Here you can see that they pulled that tooth out (it was just a baby tooth and they gave him a buck for it). The brownish spot in there is the bone graft site and the brownish stuff is the stitches. The hole is also now closed. You can see the thickness of his lip in that area which is slightly swollen but is still much thicker than the rest of his lip due to a build-up of scar tissue from the previous surgeries. This was the one thing they were not able to correct this time around and will require one more very short little surgery (10 minute procedure) in a couple of month's time.
He has an adult tooth poised in his gums to come down right into the graft site. The tooth will actually complete the binding process of the graft into the surrounding palate and gums and it is what determined the timing of this surgery. I'll have to add in a picutre of his glued together hip but, believe it or not, I don't seem to have any pictures of that. I'm sure Philip will be happy to oblige me tomorrow...

As you can see Philip certainly was more than happy to show off the scar:

And here's a close-up of it. The white-ish stuff is dried up glue that is flaking off.

More Davidisms

David finished brushing his teeth the other evening and came downstairs. He announced to me, "Well, I brushed my teeth" and then continued with great disgust, "They are *always* in my mouth."



Last Sunday Ben overheard this conversation between John Michael and David:

JM: I want some milk! Get me some milk!

David: No, John, that's not how you ask. You ask like this. May I please have some milk?

Guess who got the milk?!

I Love My Lips!

It's a lip, it's a lip, it's a lip, lip, lip! Well, it wasn't Larry's lips but Philip's that got a complete overhaul today. Today was the big day of his 3rd surgery to correct the cleft in his lip and palate. It was a big day all around as Adora went to court this morning to meet up with Nehemiah's dad who was a no-show (boo hoo on him!). While Adora was in court, Muffy showed up to help out. Fr. Joel arrived home from work shortly before noon - just in enough time to load Philip and Nathan up in the car and get us all to the hospital. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Theresa picked up Miriam and took her to her dentist appointment, Adora arrived back home and Muffy took the girls back to her place for a couple of days. The hospital called this morning to ask if we could get there a couple of hours earlier than scheduled - NOT!

We arrived at the hospital and Philip went through the usual formalities. He sat around in a hospital-issue gown, 2 cheeks to the wind, while getting his vitals, Mom and Dad did paperwork, he visited with the anesthesiologist, a child care worker showed him the "medicine mask" and hooked him up with a handheld Playstation (he died and went to Heaven before he even hit the surgery table!) and the surgeon came in, chatted him up and wrote on his face, complete with his initials.

Dad accompanied him into the surgical room where some guy named Charlie talked him up until he fell dead asleep and they kicked Fr. Joel out. Then the waiting began. They called us about 40 minutes later (around 4:00) to say that they had just begun the surgery and all was going well. Three chapters of a Patrick O'Brien novel and too many episodes of Divorce Court later his doctor appeared on the scene with Philip's tooth in a little sample cup with a dollar taped to the top. The surgery went well, he said and all but one goal was accomplished. Here were the goals, just for the record:

1. Repair aveolar cleft in the palate (this involved removing the baby tooth in the gap of the cleft, taking a piece of bone out of Philip's left hip and using it to build a bridge across the gap caused by the cleft).

2. Close up the fistula (aka hole) running from the roof of Philip's mouth into his nostril (never again will he spit stuff out of his nose).

3. Revise the lip where a previous surgery had left a small peak on the top edge of his lip.

4. Remove scar tissue from a previous surgery.

Goals 1-3 were accomplished with flying colors. Number 4 will require a brief (10 minute) second surgery in a couple of months.

We were able to go in and visit with Philip in the recovery room where he remained for about 1 1/2 hours. This was also our first clue that the evening was not going to go as planned. We had brought Nathan along as he still requires milking every few hours and the plan was for me and little Naters to spend the night nursing Philip back to health in the hospital. This being flu and RSV season, no children under the age of 16 are currently allowed in the hospital areas where there are patients so...we had to take turns alternately visiting with Philip and bouncing Nathan on our knees (although Charlie did volunteer to babysit briefly so we could both go into recovery together at first..what a guy!). This also meant that Mom and baby were going home while Dad stayed behind to fill the nursing role....no skin off of Philip's teeth, he's definitely a Daddy's boy anyway. It was a bit problematic for Fr. Joel, however, when we realized the extra socks and undies I had packed weren't exactly going to fit him comfortably...

So here I am at home, very late at night, typing this out for all the world to read while Fr. Joel tries to get comfy in a pull-out chair and make Philip pee in a container (apparently he's decided to compete with his little brother, Bladder of Steel who, incidentally, has completely reverted back to diapers since his great pottying victory nigh 6 days ago).

Somewhere on my camera are before pictures. I'll take some after shots and try to get them up here on the blog.

But for now, I'm turning in!

More Rules to Live By

Sometimes I find myself saying the durndest things....


You may not make noseprints in your cornbread.

You may not hide your food in the Advent wreath.

If you find yourself licking your plate, you are *not* having good table manners.

Saying goodnight does not involve the word dupa.

You may not wear your veil to the dinner table.

Do not put your foot in a hot oven.

You may not boss people around when you are only wearing your underwear.

Success!!

Well, John Michael decided today was the day to become a big boy. Adora convinced him that only babies wear diapers and if he's going to be a baby then he can only eat baby food...and she made a big kid only Valentine cheesecake. That did it. The diaper came off, the underpants went on and the wait began to see if Bladder of Steel could make it to the potty in time. About half-way through supper he got a funny look on his face, announced that he was about to have wet pants and ran to his little potty (conveniently placed within eyeshot of the dining room table). About a minute later the little potty was full! John took care of his business and returned to the table only to sneak off and back to the potty a few minutes later. As soon as we realized he was missing (hey, with 13 bodies in the house it's not hard to misplace one once in a while) all eyes were on the potty where John was sporting a determined look and proclaimed that he would also be pooping. Sure enough he was right. I asked him to empty out his little potty and after a few too many minutes in the bathroom, I walked in to find him scrubbing the small potty receptacle with the toilet brush - by golly if he was going to be a big boy, he was going to go all out! Well, Bob the Builder was so pleased to hear about John Michael's accomplishment that he once again called him personally to congratulate him. A couple of other sibs got in on the Bob action and Ben swears his voice is a dead ringer for Deacon Jeff but maybe that's just a funny coincidence...Big Boy to the bitter end of the day, John insisted on taking his first shower as well instead of a bath. He did don a night-time diaper with promises of dry, clean pants all day tomorrow to earn him the privelege of wearing underpants to bed too! ....sniff....sniff...my baby's growing up!

Animal Sounds

I was running through animal sounds with David the other day and got these responses:

David, what does a dog say?

Woof! Woof!

What does a cat say?

Meow!

What does a lion say?

ROAR!

What does a chicken say?

QUACK! QUACK!

What does a bear say?

Go RAVENS!

That's my boy...



Just now I was rounding up John Michael and David for naps. I asked John if he was ready for a nap and he replied to me, "No, I am not ready for a nap but only say the word and I shall be healed." I got a big chuckle out of that and related the story to Fr. Joel but admitted that I was pondering which exact words would heal him from this anti-napism. He suggested, "Behold the nap of John. Blessed are they who nap until Supper."


We had some friends over the other night and John brought along his guitar while Fr. Joel was jamming on his recorders. When they ran out of songs to sing, they asked the kids for requests. John Michael begged them to play "Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star" which, we decided after trying out his version, begs the question where *does* rain come from?

HAIR!

Three Princesses and A Prince

Another local church sponsored a Father/Daughter Princess Dance. A few of the families from our church decided it was a worth-while event and a whole slew of happy girls prepared for their big night out tonight. Our girls made themselves tiaras, picked out their princess dresses and donned their prettiest jewels. Then they anxiously awaited Daddy's return from work.
Daddy came home with flowers for each of the girls. They, meanwhile, had carefully selected his blue suit and the handprint tie (he was opting to be "Daddy" for the evening rather than wear his usual formal "Father" attire) and thus they sealed his fate as the father of daughters. His fashion sense will never again go unnoticed... The event was a brilliant success. The hosting church is a large, well-organized body who really knows how to throw a nice party. They joined hundreds of other young princesses and their dads, danced the night away, had a sit-down dinner and were treated to a presentation about Queen Esther and her love for her Lord. It was a night to remember for many years to come!