The apple doesn't fall far

The adults in this house have been like ships passing in the night for the last two weeks. Damn jobs. No worries, though. It's like Mark is home as long as his mini-me is in the house. One worships at the computer and the other at Disney Channel, but otherwise there's a lot of similarity!

Is this thing on?

So. I guess I took the summer off from blogging. That was unintentional, but some math whiz could probably work up a chart that would track the inverse relationship between the amount of blogging I did and the amount of time the boys were at home and the amount of time I've spent trying to figure out how in the world to write coherently and intelligently about insurance. My summer was awesome and humbling all at once. Now it’s September and the fun of the swimming pool, long bike rides, a California vacation, a South Carolina vacation and a couple of birthdays around here are distant memories. 

Labor Day weekend marks not only the end of summer but also our wedding anniversary. My parents generously offered to stay with the boys last night so we could go eat sushi to celebrate. Anyone who is my Facebook friend already knows that during dinner Mark also needed to participate in an online Fantasy Football draft, so there's that, but we had a nice meal. (In all honesty, it's a father/son league that some friends and their kids organize and Andrew probably enjoys it more than Mark does so it was difficult to be upset with him for having to frantically scroll through available running backs between bites.) We had a great evening but by the time we got home, got the boys in bed and prepared for the beginning of another week, we didn't end up opening our anniversary cards.

I came home this afternoon and decided to go ahead and open this beauty from the love of my life. Isn’t that a nice sentiment?

Then I opened it.

Under some circumstances, on some days, in some moods, I would have been offended. Except, guess what?

That’s right. We bought each other the same card. We purchased them at different stores and I have the receipt to prove I chose it first, but still. Next thing you know we’ll start looking alike and sharing reading glasses. This summer may have been an uphill blur, but at least I’m crawling uphill with someone with the same sense of humor.

Ten things I’ve learned in the last ten months

1. College students’ fashion choices verge on ridiculous; some things never change. It’s awesome fun to watch.

2. Uyghur is an obscure language spoken in Western China. The University of Kansas is home to one of a handful of Uyghur language programs in the country.

3. College campuses are dysfunctional bureaucracies that somehow perk along despite themselves. This is also awesome fun to watch.

4. I would enjoy being a lady who lunches.

5. Having any job, even a part-time one on a college campus, takes mindshare and commitment and hours out of your home and officially makes you NOT a lady who lunches.

6. If I can’t be a lady who lunches then it’s good to work in a setting that challenges me and makes me feel like I have an expertise I’m utilizing and offers flexibility and also that pays you not in Monopoly money.

7. I thought I wanted to clean my own toilets. I was wrong about that, but it is possible to train your children to pee IN the toilet after you teach them how to clean the floor.

8. Salsa dancing has become increasingly popular in China during the last decade and you can build a career of researching the how and why of that as it relates to China’s relations with the U.S. and Latin America.

9. Resigning from a job over a sketchy Skype connection to Great Britain is awkward no matter how gracious and understanding the person on the other end of the line is.

10. Change is hard. It’s possibly harder for me than it should be because, well, I’m just not very adaptable.

Last August I quit my job and took a part-time position at KU. Change for the sake of change is rarely recommended, but in this case it was right. While working at the Center for East Asian Studies was definitely a stretch for me in some ways, in others it was pretty safe. I’ve blended in with the woodwork for ten months and basically punched a clock with a firm limit on the amount of time I could work. I have mostly executed relatively simple tasks assigned by someone other than me. I have also, however, learned that if I’m going to have a job to which I devote any brain power, I maybe might as well do something that stretches me a bit in ways beyond learning how to pronounce difficult names and remembering where it is that Uyghur is spoken.

I took this picture walking to my KU office on my last day of work because it was a beautiful
 morning. It now appears to me that two paths are diverging...or maybe they're converging.
Hmmm. Points to ponder.

I have some pretty great people in my life and one of them has recently helped put an opportunity in front of me to change course…again. Next week I will return to working in marketing and communications, for an organization that should also be commended for its willingness to try something new.  These people are willing to take a chance on letting me work primarily from home in an industry about which I know exactly nothing. No pressure, right? I better get this one right. Only time will tell if living through change that you’ve brought on yourself makes you better at adapting, and while I’m pretty terrified I’m also pretty excited about this one. You’ll have to stay tuned for future updates on how I handle cleaning the toilets when I work so close to them!

Science, for the win

Instead of making excuses (to myself? for myself?) about why it has been a month since I wrote something here, I'm going to just dive in with this little gem of a story...

Andrew had a futsal game in Kansas City yesterday in the late-afternoon (if I were making excuses about why I haven't been writing, futsal in Kansas City would appear on the list...) and we decided that while we were so close to the Plaza, we should go ahead and take the boys to dinner and to see the miles of Christmas lights there. 

After a little tension about whether it was possible for Andrew to change his clothes in a moving car and a little disagreement between boys and a mom about whether gray cargo pants actually count as "dress clothes," we maneuvered through the dense Saturday night crowds and enjoyed a great meal with my parents, making the effort of changing out of soccer clothes in the car worth it.

As is the norm these days, Thomas didn't think much of the food available to him on the menu, but he apparently doesn't mind not eating. Not eating affords him more time to talk. And tell stories. And ask questions. My poor lucky mother was the recipient of most of his conversation last night because we were seated around a large round table. He commanded her assistance with word puzzles during the appetizer and her help with cutting the food he mostly didn't eat during the entree. While waiting for dessert he re-payed her efforts by offering up a little science lesson. He has been learning about solids, liquids and gasses and about other physical properties of objects.

I was half-listening as he was chatting about the properties of different things on the table but tuned in fully just in time for him to point at a wine glass and say, "Grandma. Did you know this glass is transparent?"  She responded by telling him that was correct and then said, like the good educator she is, "What's the opposite of transparent?"

Without missing a beat Thomas said, "Oh, that would be opaque." Then my mom said, "If the wine glass is transparent, can you give me an example of something that's opaque?"

He paused a nano-second, looked around the table filled with all kinds of plates and food and then reached up and tapped my mom's cheek and said, "Yes. You're opaque, Grandma!"

We decided most people are, but I think that he'll eventually learn that some are decidedly more so than others!

Like a blur

This summer, maybe even more than those of years past, is moving in a blur. This opinion piece from the New York Times has been making the rounds in email and facebook and if I would find the time to read it I would likely find that it describes our family’s summer pace quite aptly. Aside from the normal commitments of work, laundry and feeding of boys, this summer has been particularly full of sports.We’ve had swimming, baseball, soccer and general forward movement happening nearly every day since school ended in May. And, just when I’m feeling like our daily dose of sports might just run us into the ground, we have days that are so much fun I can’t imagine not having experienced them.

Andrew’s summer camp stages an annual triathlon for the kids. They spend two weeks “training” during their pool and outdoor times and the result is the Raintree Ironkids Triathlon. Andrew participated in the intermediate version which meant that he swam four down-and-back laps of the pool, rode four laps of the bike loop and ran four laps around the pond. The kids were marked with numbers just like in a real triathlon and it was a total hoot to watch.


Waiting for his heat to start.


Finishing up his last lap. He was in dog paddle mode by this point!


In the transition area between swimming and biking.


MVI 2639 from Susan Henderson on Vimeo.
Pausing, oh so briefly, to have his lap marked during the run.

In true Montessori fashion, there are no winners announced in this event and every racer is made to feel like the top finisher. He loved the whole experience and I would be a little surprised if this goes down in the history books as his last triathlon.

The Tour of Lawrence bicycle races fell on the following weekend and Andrew felt like maybe he’d had enough exercise for the week but Thomas was not deterred. He and I headed downtown bright and early on a VERY HOT Sunday morning so he could complete the Kids’ Fun Run on Massachusetts Street. He brought home bragging rights as the fastest six-year-old on the street that day. This kid frequently hears that his brother is fast so for him to feel like he was too that day was priceless.


MVI 2651 from Susan Henderson on Vimeo.


Way to go, T!
The biggest single time slurp of the summer – aside from the already mentioned work, laundry and feeding – has been, without question, baseball. Thomas just completed his inaugural six games of t-ball and I regret that while I have some pictures, they’re not very good. The lens is clouded with dust from the field and my focus wasn’t great, which might have been due to sweat dripping in my eyes. His mid-day games weren’t ideal in this summer’s heat.  If you asked him he would tell you baseball isn’t his thing; he didn’t really dig all the waiting around. We’ll encourage him to play again next year, because his enduring memory of this season might be that he had to stand in the outfield and sweat off his sunscreen.

Andrew’s baseball season with the DCABA Royals also just concluded. His was a 14-game regular season and we tacked on a league tournament at the end for good measure. While there were definitely times when the season felt long, it was pretty fun to watch the kids improve each game and, let’s be honest, we all love a winner. They finished their season at 13-4 and won their league tournament last night. I am frequently heard complaining that Lawrence feels pretty small some days, but last night was a great reminder of the benefits of small town living. The league championship game was played at Free State High School. That means that two teams of seven, eight and nine-year-old boys got to play out their final game under the lights, on state-of-the-art turf, with real dugouts and a real scoreboard and a real announcer.

The boys’ very wise coach had them practice how to graciously tip their cap as they were introduced during the pre-game, but Andrew was caught off guard by hearing his name again. He was first in the rotation last night and as he approached home to start the game, the announcer called his name and number as the first batter.  Andrew momentarily froze and looked around to figure out where that voice had come from, not anticipating that he would be called to the plate. At that moment it occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve ever had my name called in that way and I was pretty darn happy to live in this little town where a youth baseball game draws a crowd of supportive organizers, parents, grandparents and family friends to support a bunch of great boys.


Pre-game introductions



Getting some hardware that he would have slept in last night if allowed.



Your Douglas County Amateur Baseball Association American League Champion Royals!


Number 4 on the field, number 1 in this mom’s heart.

The goals for what's left of summer are to soak up all the pool time possible, eat dinner at a normal hour with more frequency and enjoy each blurry moment.

Spring break by the numbers

I like to believe it’s not so much that I'm not a numbers person as it is that I am a word person. I rarely think numerically and, as the length of my average blog post will illustrate, I definitely think in narrative. This week, though, I’ve got numbers on the brain. It might be because our beloved Jayhawks played their hearts out in the Final Four, or the fact that Thomas turned six last week or, maybe, that Andrew played four soccer games last weekend. The reason isn’t yours to question but rather to rejoice. I’m going to recap our Spring Break trip to visit Butch, RoRo, Maria, Eric and the collective cousins in California by the numbers. Here goes:

37 – the number of seconds it took for all the kids to disappear into the house to play together once we arrived in Claremont this trip.

45 – the number of minutes after they disappeared before we saw them again.

1 – the number of days each of our boys spent, individually, with Aunt Maria in her first grade classroom. I worried they might not think it was fun to go to school during spring break. I worried for not. They loved it.

13 – the number of times Thomas marveled at the layout of California schools, which have no interior hallways and instead open to an outdoor courtyard.

18 – the number of miles we drove from Butch and RoRo’s house to reach the Mt. Baldy Ski Area with the boys. We threw snowballs since we haven’t done that at home this winter. (Global warming is real, people.)

 

72 – the number of times Thomas told us he didn’t like the curvy mountain road and asked to go back to Butch and RoRo’s house on said trip up the mountain. We assured him he would love it at the top. He did not love it at the top. You win some, you lose some.

17 – the number of notes I found in the boys’ bedroom during the week with floor plans of the house drawn on one side and narrative on the other that said, “Susan and Maria talking again. RoRo laughing. Butch watching television. Mark on computer. Eric texting.” The Spy Game evolved this trip into hours of entertainment.  The kids sneak around the house “spying” on - and “whispering” about - the adults and they take notes on what they find. The adults go about their business pretending as if we can’t see the kids, per their request. The Spy Game is a win-win.

58 – the number of times my kids asked Butch when he would get out the Model A so they could go for a drive.

58 – the miles per hour all the kids moved, as they raced toward the Model A, when Butch surprised us at the playground offering rides on a beautiful afternoon.

5 – the number of kids Maria had sleeping in her house on the Tuesday night of our visit. “Hooray for sleepovers,” says the woman who went home and slept in a big quiet house with three other adults.

 

4:45 a.m. – the time that Zac and Andrew woke Maria up on the morning after the sleepover. No need to worry; they were just going to feed the dog and play Mario Kart. “Hilarious. They’re so helpful,” says the woman who was sound asleep in a big quiet house with three other adults at 4:45 a.m.

34 – the length of the largest T. Rex at the LA Natural History Museum, which we visited the next day. His name is Thomas, which we obviously found charming. RoRo purchased t-shirts for all the kids and I was that mom, asking museum staff to please check the back room, because we really needed the Thomas the T. Rex shirt in the right size!!!

4,000 – the number of Dire Wolves it is estimated have been pulled from the tar at the La Brea Tar Pits. We visited there after the Natural History Museum and it was fascinating for most of us.

1 – the number of people in our party who weren’t so impressed by the Tar Pits. I won’t name names, but someone whose name rhymes with “hair” was most disappointed to find out that all the animals available for viewing at the Tar Pits were dead. I believe the quote was, “Where are all the alive animals?” and when the answer was, “There aren’t any. They died in the tar,” the response was, “This place is stupid.”

4 – the number of Henderson/Tucker children who ended up with tar on some part of their body as we wandered the grounds. That place is nuts; the tar is still bubbling in pits and is literally seeping from the ground mere feet from the sidewalk.

1 – the number of Henderson/Tucker children who were still awake when we arrived home that evening. Andrew. Of course. He had only been up since 4:45 a.m.

3 – the number of hours of adult conversation, great food and beer we enjoyed with the Tuckers that evening while our collective kids were in the care of babysitters and RoRo. As always, the gift of being related to people you like and who make you laugh is not lost on me.

45- the number of miles we drove the next day to have a delicious lunch in Long Beach and enjoy a Harbor Cruise. We could see snowy Mt. Baldy from the boat. Crazy.

2 – the number of rides we let the kids enjoy at the Santa Monica Pier, where we journeyed after Long Beach. Watching Luke, Claire and Thomas ride the bumper cars was worth the price of admission. Afterwards they got to touch the very cold Pacific Ocean and we took the scenic route along the beach back to the car.

2.5 – the number of hours it took us to make the return journey to Butch and RoRo’s that night. It’s a 50-mile drive; I’ll let you do that math. We only had one child end up car sick and it only took 30 chicken nuggets and five Sprites to keep them quiet enough to make it possible for Maria to navigate the route.

3 – the number of miles that Mark told me we would be hiking on Friday morning in the beautiful foothills of the Claremont Wilderness Park.

5 – the number of miles we actually hiked on our last morning in the foothills. It was so worth it and something I want to do again with the boys, next time with some water.  

2 – the number of minutes we saw of the KU vs. NC State basketball when we arrived home after an easy day of travel. Rock Chalk!

128 – the number of times the boys have asked if we can return to California this summer for more family time, in the 10 days we’ve been home.

We had a great trip and can’t thank Butch, RoRo and the Tuckers enough for all the good food, accommodations and company. We’re very, very lucky indeed!

 

p.s. I had vowed when we left for CA that I would not write another blog post before I recapped our late-December journey to Florida to see Mickey and his friends. That trip, it turns out, is overwhelming to blog. Stay tuned, though!

I raise you a javelin

Andrew is generally believed to be a reasonably intelligent child, which makes the fact that he managed to get his “good” soccer ball stuck in a tree today totally irritating baffling. Apparently he didn’t remember that those trees are in possession of numerous sporting goods captured by their upward arcing branches. He was genuinely surprised, after he and a friend threw a soccer ball as high as they could in the general direction of the tree, that it became lodged 25 feet above the ground. He pleaded with me to get it down but I assured him I had no tricks up my sleeve that would allow me to reach that ball. Mark, who had been outside,  heard the commotion and silently disappeared. I assumed that he was silently disappearing so that I could handle the situation without his interference. (Insert eye roll here…)

Imagine my surprise when he reappeared seconds later dragging a very long cardboard tube behind him. That tube? It looked familiar. That tube has been leaning in the corner of our garage for the last 10 years. That garage? We’re not quite ready for Hoarders, but we can see it from here. I’ve inquired about that long cardboard tube several times in the last 10 years. “Are we seriously keeping this?” “What are you EVER going to do with that?” “Do you really think anyone will use that again?” 

That tube? It holds a javelin. I’ll give you a second here to wonder why in the world we would have a javelin in our garage. The answer is that we apparently have a javelin in our garage to dislodge soccer balls from Bradford Pear trees.



Every experience has the potential to be a teaching moment. What I learned this afternoon was that even though I’m the parent that prepares 82% of my kids’ meals, does 74% of their laundry,  and does 99% of any caretaking that happens between 9 p.m.and 7 a.m., I will never be their favorite.  Why? Because I don’t know squat about a javelin.

In less than 30 seconds, Mark expertly pulled the javelin far enough out of its cardboard home to make the total reach long enough to push the soccer ball to freedom, which elicited cheers from Andrew, Thomas and the playmate. Then? He let them each have a turn to throw the javelin. He showed three small boys how to throw a very long, metal, pointed object in our backyard.

I quit.

I watched this nonsense from the deck and decided that if I couldn’t win the favored parent award I might as well try to throw a javelin. It turns out that I suck at that and should stick to laundry. Mark was, predictably, the only one of us that could actually make it stick in the ground.
 


I document all of this mostly as a reminder to myself. We all have our special gifts and we all make our contributions to the family unit. There will come a time, probably this week, when I feel a little sorry for myself, what with the 82% of feeding and 74% of the laundry and all, and this will serve as a good reminder. It takes a village to raise a couple of great little men and I am grateful that their dad is capable of doing 26% of the laundry and a far greater percentage of the stuff that they’ll actually remember when they’re older.

p.s. Any of you who are related to us should consider yourselves potential character witnesses should Andrew’s playmate’s parents call into question why in the world we let their child throw a javelin in our backyard today!

Starting where I am

We’re 13 days into 2012 and for 10 of those I have been meaning to update the ol’ blog site with a well-crafted post. I need (want) to write about our holiday celebrations that were replete with family and fun. I need to document our amazing post-Christmas vacation to the happiest place on earth with dozens of photos that should really be narrated before I forget the details (and the hilarity) that can surround a traveling party of 10. We truly had so much fun.



However, as my wise mother-in-law recently reminded me, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  I also recently read that the best way to move forward is to just start where you are. How profound. So, here we are.

Since we returned from Florida we’ve been embroiled in Life. We re-acclimated to school and work, which was easier for the kids than me, and we’ve also been running an infirmary.Our sweet Madeline dog had a spleenectomy last week to get things rolling and since she came home we’ve been busy keeping her off the stairs while she heals. That’s a full-time job because her interest in said stairs has quadrupled since they’ve been taboo. We heard from the veterinarian today that the tumors they removed defied the laws of probability and were benign. We feel good about electing to have the surgery and when the kids want to know why their college accounts aren’t fully-funded we’ll remind them about the extra years we bought with the best last dog we've ever owned. (I jest, I jest. We love her and are very pleased that she seems to feel better than she has in months.)

Last Saturday at 9 p.m., when the kids should have been in bed as I was wrote a brilliant trip recap, I was instead watching Chopped and the boys were roughhousing in the basement. They were fighting over a football and were in a standoff on opposite sides of a chair. At the exact moment I opened my mouth to intervene, Thomas surprised his brother by making a move toward him over the chair instead of around it. Andrew, of lightning quick reflexes, flew out from around the chair and had almost escaped his brother’s grasp when he thwacked his foot on a corner of the wall.  Hard.  We then got to have one of those parenting moments where we make a decision without speaking out loud to one another. That decision was, “sure looks gotched but we’re not taking a kid to the ER for a gotched toe on a Saturday night.”  That’s when we sent him to bed with some ice and a dose of Motrin.

By Sunday morning it looked worse so I consulted facebook. Facebook told me that there’s no reason to take a kid to a doctor for a broken toe because “they” “never” do anything for a broken toe. When he spent the entire day on the couch with it elevated we knew something might actually be wrong, however, and decided that we couldn’t even bear to buddy tape them because it was obviously out of line and we suspected that maybe it was just jammed but didn’t want to make it worse.

So, on Monday morning, right after he delivered me home from having four wisdom teeth extracted, Mark took him to the doctor. She ordered an x-ray and Mark took him back to school.  Andrew's desk chair had barely had time to get warm when the doctor's nurse called our home. I was in no shape to talk because of the gauze filling my mouth, the ice packs on my face and the general fuzziness that results from anesthesia so I hazily told my mom to talk with her. When I heard, “Oh, two toes? A boot? For how long? When do we do this?” I just reached for another pain pill.

My dad went to have Andrew called out of class and, as he drove him to the doctor’s office, broke the news that he’ll be wearing a little walking boot on his foot for the next four weeks.  FOUR WEEKS. He’s been a great trouper. It’s a big shoe on a little leg.  The lesson here is that if you’re going to break toes, don’t break them where they meet your foot. Break them near the tips where there is indeed nothing to be done for you.



Poor Thomas actually lost a tooth at school that day and there was so much commotion with my throbbing face and Andrew’s new fashion accessory that he forgot to tell us until dinnertime. Needless to say, my parents and Mark earned stars for their crowns this week for dealing with the rest of us.



The bad news is that Mark has now developed a cold that isn't bad enough to keep him away from the gym or work, but it is a mancold, which is the worst variety, so he's as bad off as the rest of us. The good news is that we’re not actually all that bad off, we’ve got some good stories from the week and 2012 is off to a rollicking start!

Thoughts on thanks

I will be the first to admit that I frequently occasionally see the glass as half-empty when, really, I’m so lucky and the notion that the glass is half-full is actually a non-negotiable fact. And yet, my vision is sometimes a bit clouded. 

Yesterday it was clouded by having to go have a blood letting health assessment over my lunch hour under the guise of it being for my own good, but it really being so that our insurer can determine how much to raise our rates. It became further clouded when I left that appointment and discovered a low tire. It was the same tire that had just received an emergency fill-up four days prior along I-70 while I was on my way to a meeting. A detour to have my tire patched was not on my Monday agenda and that proverbial glass was feeling at least half-empty.  I spent that hour of my day engaging in some positive self-talk and left the repair shop feeling better than when I arrived. They repaired my tire at no charge and I walked to a nearby Walmart and knocked out some stocking stuffers. The glass was back to at least quarter-full. Then, as if on cue, my phone rang and I was made aware that Thomas was suffering from what appeared to be a classic migraine and had barfed in the principal’s office and could I please come get him stat and they thought a change of clothes were in order.

Empty.  Or at least decidedly low.

And then a funny thing happened. I had no choice but to focus on cleaning up my sick child; to try and make him comfortable and administer sips of Gatorade and watch him sleep on my bathroom floor for the next five hours. I felt simultaneously useful and worried about him and and fortunate for our relative health. Today he woke up feeling much better but kids who have migrained all over the floor at school aren’t welcome back on school property the next day so we spent today at home. What a treat. 

Half-full or at maybe even three-quarters.

We watched, at his request, a replay of the Stanford vs. Oregon football game and we rested on his Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag. We chatted about Santa and how large his toy sack might really be and pondered how it stretches. By mid-afternoon he was raring to go and asked if I knew of any Thanksgiving crafts.  BE STILL MY HEART. After a quick consult with Google, he was soon creating masterpieces with cotton balls, stickers, feathers and googly eyes and, with me cutting and him helping with glue, we had made this banner. 



Thomas decided he’s thankful for Heysnickle, his little blue bear. I am thankful for the boy that loves that blue bear and for his brother and his dad and the rest of our clan. Strangely, I also find myself thankful for an unraveled day that provided an opportunity look at the glass from a different angle - one from which it looks like it's overflowing.

Miscellany

Andrew received a book for his birthday called "Children's Miscellany." He hasn't yet written a thank you note for that gift because I keep forgetting. In my defense, he didn't get the book until three weeks after his birthday, which means that rather than seven weeks late, it's only four...

While the gifter hasn't been appropriately thanked, I love the title and have decided to begin working that word, miscellany, into conversation.

+++++++++

Andrew is feeling much better. His teacher told me this afternoon that he thought Andrew seemed much more energetic and himself today than even yesterday. THAT was what I have been waiting to hear. Every adult who has encountered me in the last week is probably WAY sick of hearing how concerned I am about him, but I've felt strongly that he just hasn't been himself.

A few hours later I know that "more energetic" means loud and even a little bit annoyingly himself, but we'll take it.

++++++++

Now that he's feeling better I think I'm allowed to tell a story of our drive to the hospital last week. Andrew was so upset and confused and also nauseous that I rode in the backseat with him holding a garbage bag. We were 2/3 of the way to the ER when he began moaning and saying he didn't feel well and it just suddenly really felt like it would be good if were there already.

Mark pulled the car through a left hand turn on a busy street and then ducked his head down and announced that he too wasn't feeling well... and was going to blackout. 

That's when I began yelling at him to PULLOVERRIGHTTHISINSTANT, because I was doing the math and I felt like if we could just keep driving we would get there faster than if he wrecked the car and we ended up waiting on an ambulance. We did a little Chinese firedrill right in the middle of a street so I could finish up the drive.

Someday we'll tell Andrew about the time he knocked himself silly and his dad was so worried about him that he was having sympathy nausea and dizziness.  That's love.

+++++++++

In the last week Andrew has received books, legos, balloons, candy, cupcakes and cards from his buddies as get well wishes. The most priceless one I've saved.

I told this friend's mom that Andrew really appreciated the visit from his classmate and I really appreciated the card because it simply made my day last Thursday!

+++++++++

Speaking of all those get well gifts. We haven't written any thank you notes for those either. Do we need to? I'm not sure. Probably? Thoughts? Opinions?

+++++++++

Since Andrew's been a little out of commission, Thomas has been a little bored. He's accustomed to his brother providing most of his entertainment, much of his direction and nearly all of his thoughts. I have taken him out to ride his bike a couple of times just to get him out of the house and engaged in an activity. Lately, we've been riding to a church up the street because they have a huge, empty parking lot that gives the boys a place to cruise more freely than the sidewalk or our driveway.

Last night he asked me when we could go to Honey Mustard again. I didn't understand the question so I asked him to repeat it. He did. "When can we go to Honey Mustard again?" I couldn't figure out whether he was asking a serious question or just being silly then he said, "You know, to ride our bikes. When can we take our bikes to that Honey Mustard place again?"

It's the church. It's called The Mustard Seed. 

That sucked

I had a regularly scheduled meeting on today's calendar that I regularly dread. I always dread this meeting for reasons that I shouldn't elaborate on in a public forum, but today I was feeling particularly anxious about it. It lasts until 5 p.m. and it was going to be a real feat for either of us to leave work at 5p.m. and somehow still have Andrew AT soccer at 5p.m. and then get Thomas to his first ever soccer practice from 5:45-6:45 and pick Andrew up at 6:30 and somehow have us all eat a dinner together that didn't come out of a box.

I know other families juggle this kind of activity every night of the week without breaking a sweat but we're kind of new to this arena. We had a plan thrown together but I left for work thinking that the plan was full of kinks and hating that this meeting was making it all more complicated. As is so often the case, the biggest kink was still lurking.

Getting a call from Andrew's school principal at 10:45 this morning telling me that he had fallen on the playground and had "bumped his head" turned out to be my golden ticket out of the dreaded meeting. Funny thing, though; by the time the meeting rolled around I would have given anything to be sitting in that uncomfortable, tense professional environment where I'm supposed to look like I have a clue what I'm doing. Instead I was keeping watch over my boy, who had given us an awful fright, and I felt way further in over my head than I ever do at work.

We had spent the intervening hours in the hospital emergency department where Andrew alternated between agitated and tearful to quiet and confused and, truthfully, Mark and I weren't any more clear headed than he was. He asked us a series of questions over and over and over in the ER and we answered them each time but, the more times we answered, the more difficult it became to respond calmly.

"Why are we here?" Because you fell at school.

"How did it happen?" You were playing soccer with your friends.

"Am I paralyzed?" No, sweetie. You hit your head but you walked in to the hospital.

"Am I going to have to spend the night here?" We don't think so but if you do we'll be right here with you.

"Where is Thomas?" He's at school.

"Am I having a dream or is this really happening?" It's real life, baby.  This is real life.

"Why are we here again?"
"How did this happen?"
"Am I paralyzed?"
"Do I have to spend the night here?"

And so it went...for two plus hours.

A CT scan indicated that he has a concussion but no bleeding and no skull fracture and we were sent home with instructions on how to care for a child with a head injury which include staying near him tonight and waking him during his sleep. It won't be a problem because you couldn't pry us away.

He's still a little groggy and just sort of slow for Andrew standards. He doesn't remember anything about today, though he did eventually become able to at least wager a guess on what he had eaten for breakfast. We're trying to piece together exactly what happened on the playground because he doesn't have a clue and at this point it doesn't seem likely he's going to remember.

Needless to say he won't be at school tomorrow and he won't be playing soccer for a while. I also won't dread the next regularly scheduled meeting quite as much because no middle-aged man can lob anything at me that's more upsetting than watching a piece of your DNA hurt so much.

Perspective

We live in a quiet little town with our two children, one dog and 1.75 jobs. We lead a fairly simple life. With that said, I’m not sure why I can’t find time to document our existence here. We’re no busier than the average family. I think I just manage my time poorly because I somehow feel like I meet myself coming and going. Someday I’ll get better at this. In the meantime, I’ve made this my screensaver at work. It reminds me that at the end of each day my kids look peaceful and relatively happy.

This was taken on our summer vacation to Dallas. The boys shared a bed and, quite frankly, it didn’t go that well. At some point during each night we were in our hotel room I was awakened by them YELLING at one another about who had more blankets and who was hogging mattress space. Yet, early one morning, mere hours after a 3 a.m. tussle that could have woken the neighbors, we found this.

It makes me happy.