Little Will

Will is 13! His birthday was yesterday and I had started a post, but I didn’t get a chance to finish it and put it up. Better late than never!

I can’t believe I have a teenager. I can still remember him as a baby. He was such a great baby. He was so sweet and placid. He had the tiniest little cry that sounded like a siren, and when Kimberly heard him cry for the first time, she said “Oh how CUTE!! Make him do it again!”. He ate, he slept and he pooped without any fuss whatsoever…well, at least until about 10 months of age, at which point the dark days of constipation set in. That’s a blog post in and of itself.

Will was a great talker, and we tormented him endlessly by asking him various things every time we turned the video camera on. What does Pooh say? What does Tigger say? Can you say SHOW ME THE MONEY!!??. He was very obliging, for the most part. He had a very cute little squeaky voice, and even now when you call our house and get our voicemail, you can still hear the outgoing message he recorded for us when he was 3. It was just too cute to erase without somehow saving a recording of it. I guess we should get on that.

I love this picture of Will. It's his Grade 1 picture, and we were thrilled with it when he brought it home. It's cute, with the little sippy cup ears and no missing teeth yet. And then I examined it a little closer. What is THAT on his shirt? It looks like an alligator or something...On close inspection, I discovered that it was in fact an alligator-shaped booger. Yep. Why use a Kleenex when you can just grab a handful of your shirt? I wish I could say he's outgrown that nasty habit...

Boogers aside, he’s growing up to be such a great kid. He has a fantastic sense of humor and makes us laugh on a daily basis. He works hard in school (honour roll all year!) and on his piano (most of the time, Carol!). He’s responsible and considerate and a very good big brother to Lauren and Emma. He’s also moody, inappropriate (tard props!), antagonizing and snarky at times, but he’d be boring if he was Mr. Wonderful all the time. I love seeing him grow and mature, and I love that I can still see the little boy he was just yesterday. At least, it feels like it was just yesterday.

A long time ago, I got some good advice about praying for our kids the way Paul prayed for the Ephesians. So this is my prayer for Will:

...I couldn't stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers. Oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength! Ephesians 1:15-19 (The Message)

The MRI

Last week it was blood work, and this week it was an MRI. I was a little nervous about the MRI because Emma has a tendency to be somewhat claustrophobic. One year, she climbed into the box for our artificial Christmas tree and the 2 cardboard lids closed her in and she SCREAMED. Huge panic attack. Another time she had a spaz because she somehow locked herself into the bathroom and couldn’t get out. So I was a little unsure of how she would feel about being slid into a relatively small tunnel.

When the booking person at Sick Kids called to talk to us about the appointment, she recommended that we at least try to do it without sedation. It takes longer to get an appointment if your child has to be sedated because they only do those during regular business hours, rather than during evenings or weekends. We definitely wanted a sooner appointment, so we decided to just prep Emma well ahead of time and see how she did.

Our check in for registration was at 8:30 pm, so we dropped Will and Lauren off at Ken and Lynn’s and gave ourselves plenty of time to get downtown. We haven’t been to Sick Kids for a long time (thank goodness), and we weren’t 100% sure where it was, and how the parking would be, etc. We made great time and had a chance to walk around a bit and check the place out. What a beautiful hospital! As terrible as it would be to have a sick child, you couldn’t ask for a better environment. Everything is so cheery and bright, and there are so many amenities. The main floor really doesn’t look anything like a hospital at all.

So we sat and had our snack from Tim Horton’s and chatted about things until it was time to go. We headed down to the MRI department, where we filled in a couple of forms and Emma changed into her hospital nightie. She quite liked it and was interested in taking it home, although she wasn’t too keen on the back of it being open. We passed some time in the waiting room doing some reading and looking at pictures on daddy’s pocket PC, and then Emma decided to give her penguin an MRI.

Emma was finally called for her scan at about 9:15 or so. The MRI room was quite cold, so after she lay down on the stretcher part of the machine, she had a blanket tucked around her (and her penguin) and she was strapped in. She had to wear a big set of headphones because the MRI machine makes so much noise, and then there was a helmet-type thing that went on over top. (I told her she looked like a Storm Trooper, which she thought was funny). There was a mirror on it so that the technician would be able to see her face and make sure she was okay throughout the test. I sat in the room with her and sported a big pair of headphones too. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the testing started. It’s not one long test, per se, but a number of pictures being taken in succession. Each one can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 4 minutes, and the patient has to be perfectly still throughout. Emma did her “sleeping beauty” thing for almost a whole hour! That’s a LONG time for a little kid to lie still. Heck, it would be a long time for me to lie still.

I asked her afterwards if she had been afraid, and she said she was a little bit nervous, but mostly her back was sore from lying on the stretcher thing. I saw her smiling a couple of times, and when I asked her what had made her smile, she said that some of the noises had sounded like farts. It doesn’t matter what the situation is…my kids will find bathroom humor in it somewhere!

I think we're done now, in terms of investigations. Emma has an appointment with the pediatric neurologist in September, and we hope to hear good things there. We're just trusting the Lord with her every day. She's really been quite oblivious to all the worry, and in fact has enjoyed having "her own" doctor. Her biggest concern about the MRI was whether it would show that she had a small brain. (how embarrassing, right?!) :)

Our Trip to the Lab (warning...some gross content :)

My Saturday started early this week. Because of the medication she’s taking, Emma has to have blood work periodically to monitor how much of it is in her system, and to make sure that it’s not having a negative effect on her liver, etc. My plan was to get to the lab right when it opened, since a) Emma would be STARVING, with it being fasting blood work, and b) she couldn’t have her medication until after the blood work had been done. However, it took us longer to find a parking space than I had planned (basically because I was too cheap to park in the paid lot and had to scout around for a free meter), so we ended up getting there after they’d been open for about 10 minutes or so. Even still, I figured (foolishly) how many people are going to be needing blood work on a Saturday morning?. HA! The waiting room was packed; old people, young people, nervous and possibly pregnant people, and of course, some odd people (like the man who was wearing his slippers).

We took a number and had a seat. We were #57, and they were serving #38, so I figured we had a pretty good wait ahead of us. I don’t think an hour has ever passed so slowly. A series of brief videos kept looping the whole time we waited, so feel free to ask me about conserving water, how to support a newborn’s head, and the alarming symptoms of a stroke. The longer we sat, the more I got grossed out about the waiting room and the probably horrific levels of bacteria sitting on every surface. People were coughing all over the place, but even worse were the people who had to provide urine samples. At one point, there were about half a dozen people sitting in the waiting room with steamy little specimen bottles; some with damp paper towel around them. Blech.

The one that really got me was the teenager sitting near us. The poor guy had some pretty bad acne, which is unfortunate. However, it’s probably not a good idea to pick at the spots. I happened to look his way just in time to see him pick a spot on his forehead, examine his fingernails and then casually dispose of whatever he found there…on the floor? on the chair? Who knows where it went? I had one of those “I just threw up a bit in the back of my throat” kind of moments.

But finally, it was our turn. Emma was a trooper and only cried a little bit. She was easily won over by a couple suckers, a finger puppet and the promise of a hashbrown from McDonald’s. Thank goodness we don’t have to have blood work done again for a few months. I’m not sure my stomach could handle it.

Overheard

For the most part, Lauren and Emma play well together. We laugh at they way they dictate scenarios to each other, and how they oblige each other. Usually, one will say “Pretend your girl said…” and immediately the other will have their girl say the required lines. The “girls” can be baby dolls, barbies or even stuffed animals, but there is a recurrent theme of boyfriends and going on dates.

Here’s one I overheard recently (keep in mind that Emma is doing the talking for both her Girl and for the boyfriend):

Emma’s Girl’s boyfriend on phone: Do you want to go on a date?

EG: Where are you right now?

BF: In an important meeting. Want to go on a date?

EG: SURE!! Where should we go?

BF: How about McDonald’s?

EG: Ok see you there!

Lauren to Emma: Is your girl going on a date?

E: Yep. Is yours?

L: Yep. Where’s your girl going?

E: To McDonald’s.

L: Hmmm…my girl doesn’t want to go there because it’s not very romantic. People barf there.

E: Where is YOUR girl going?

L: Swiss Chalet

EG to Boyfriend on phone: Maybe we should go somewhere else…

BF: Where should we go?

EG: I’m not sure…somewhere with romantic music. (Lauren in the background: SWISS CHALET!!)

EG: How about Swiss Chalet? Or, I know…how about Montana’s? They have romantic rodeo music there.

BF: Okay. Pick you up later.

Maybe we could suggest a new marketing concept to the Burger King People to try and woo customers from McDonald’s…something like We can provide better ambiance and less barf. I’d also be interested in hearing what romantic rodeo music sounds like.

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This is not at all related to the post above, but I had to put it in because I thought it was funny and I don't want to forget it. Emma came in from school just now and told me that she had had a great afternoon. I asked whether she had any homework, and she told me that she didn't. She said "We had Mr. Gerrard today, and he was GREAT! Even though he IS missing a toenail on one of his toes". I'm sure that Mr. Gerrard would be thrilled to hear that he's a competent teacher, even though he's deformed.

The Week in Review

I love June, I really do. September has a whole back-to-school-cool-weather-apples-and-burning-leaves thing that I love, but the winding down of June is nice, too. Swimming lessons are done! Clubs are finished! No more choir! Only 8 days of school!! Will is almost finished with piano. He has one more lesson on Monday, and then he does his Grade 2 exam on Friday. We went to his recital on Thursday, and he did great! Apart from finishing one of his songs in the wrong octave, he was quite pleased. I told him that I didn’t remember how it was supposed to end (having tuned it out at home after listening to months of practice), and probably Mrs. Churchill would just think he had taken some creative license (haha!!).

Here he is at the recital. (Actually, we cheated and took this picture afterwards, so that we could get a decent shot). Fortunately, you can't see the monster grass stain on his pants that I didn't notice until he pointed it out to me, 2 minutes after we arrived. Argh!



In addition to being presented with a nice certificate and some cool sheet music, Will was also given this award! (i just noticed what a crappy job i did taking a picture of this! Excuse my somewhat lacking photography skills). It says For excellence and achievement in piano study 2007-2008.


He was thrilled with it, and has scoped out a place in his room to hang it up. To say thank you to Carol for being such a wonderful teacher, Darren and I made this:



Although I know it was not quite as professional a job as these people would do, we were happy with how it turned out. And the bottom line is that it tasted good. How can you go wrong when you dip something in chocolate? I think we probably ate as much fruit ourselves as we stuck in the arrangement.

That’s been our week. One other thing I did yesterday was to order one of these for Emma. I’ve been thinking it would probably be a good idea for her to have one, and when I was looking around online, I discovered that there is a federal program called No Child Without. Basically, the program provides 24 hour MedicAlert protection to all elementary school aged children who need it. I’m hoping we won’t need it for long, but it will certainly be great to have it for the time being. Emma was quite excited about the whole thing, so it probably won't be difficult to get her to wear it all the time. It will probably be a bigger challenge to make sure that Lauren doesn't wind up wearing it. That girl's BIG into bling.

Malapropisms

I think my kids consider themselves fairly grown up, but occasionally they do or say something that makes me sigh with relief that they really aren't as sophisticated as they think they are.

A while ago we somehow got talking about natural disasters at the dinner table. (Hmmm...natural disasters at the dinner table sounds like someone laughing milk out their nose or burping the alphabet. Let's just say we were discussing earthquakes, tornadoes and the like.) Darren and I were sharing what limited knowledge we had on the subject, when Lauren said "I wonder if salamis are as dangerous as hurricanes". There was a pause, during which Darren and I grinned at each other across the table, and then I said "Oh, I DEFINITELY think that a hurricane is more dangerous than a salami". I was then going to set her straight (very kindly, so as not to make her feel foolish) when Will jumped in. "WHAT?? SALAMI?? NOT SALAMI....IT'S TSUNAMI!!! HAHAHA!!! SALAMI!!!" Sweet boy. Lauren was a little annoyed until I told her to ask Will what an uhlcar was.

But the best one I've heard in a while came today. Emma and I were lounging around this morning, talking about things we want to do, when she mentioned that she'd like to see a movie. I asked her which one she wanted to see and she said "Well, it's called...umm...oh yeah! The Narnicles of Corinthia." OH MY GOODNESS DID WE LAUGH!! All day, every time I thought about it, it would make me laugh all over again, especially because she didn't see what was so funny, initially. So with all due respect to Mr. Lewis, around here we will refer to his great literary work as The Narnicles.

Dead fish, dead fish, red fish, new fish!

Last night at bedtime, Emma came rushing upstairs to tell Darren that Quickster (Lauren's goldfish) was behaving strangely. He was kinda lying on one side, alternately drifting around the tank and coming up to the surface. An executive decision was made to send Quickster on his way, and so he was peacefully ushered into the hereafter. Forgive me...two fish funerals in 24 hours has made me wax a little poetic.

So today after school, Darren and the girls went fish shopping and this was the result; a betta fish. Apparently these fish require very little in order to survive and thrive. In other words, they're perfect for us! I don't want to give the impression that we aren't good pet owners. We've managed to keep a cat alive for 18 months, after all. Sure, she had that whole over-grooming problem and was missing a lot of fur for a while, but still. We never forgot to feed her or anything.

I'm not sure that a name has been settled on for this fish. Darren asked the girls what they were going to call it, and Emma said "RED!!". (It's not really clear in the picture, but the fish is red). Darren suggested that they think about it some more (!), and a few minutes later, Lauren suggested that they could call the fish Rouge. Hmmm...I sense a theme here. They had also considered Speedster, as an homage to the deceased, but that was rejected for reasons unknown. I'm personally holding out hope for Benny, but I guess we'll see.

Emma thinks that the fish seems quite happy in his new home. I get the feeling that this fish doesn't have the chirpiest personality. He stared back at me quite brazenly when I was taking a picture or two of him, and I got the distinct impression that he was scowling at me, as if to say Get a good shot? How about you get me out of this frickin tupperware?

In other news, I should mention that Will is fine and dandy, by the way. He hasn't been mentioned in a few posts now, and I wanted to alleviate any concern that he had dropped off the face of the earth. During one conversation I had with him today, he shared some thoughts with me about Rose The Crossing Guard. He noted that she always wears at least 2 coats, and always has sleeves on. I pointed out that most coats do, in fact, have sleeves. Otherwise they would be called vests. He said that even in the warm weather, she always has her arms covered up. I said "So, what's your point?". His point was that he thinks she has some sort of bionic prosthetic arms that she snaps on, and she doesn't want anyone to know about it. I'm pretty sure bionic prosthetic arms are a prerequisite for most crossing guards, right?