Not What I Was Planning

Today I was going to show you some pictures of a happy boy frolicking in a pile of leaves.  Or, maybe today was the day I was going to talk about my weekly ritual of baking bread for my family.  Instead, you get a different story.

It all started earlier this week when Matthew complained that his ear hurt.  I could see nothing wrong with it and he had no other signs of infection so I chalked it up to him getting whacked on the side of his head by a sibling and went on with life. A day passed and his ear was still tender but I could see nothing wrong with it.

Yesterday his ear was so tender we couldn't touch it so I decided to pin my boy down and take a good look.  Lo and behold, I saw a stone lodged in there.  We headed off to the walk-in clinic where as luck would have it, our own GP was working a shift.  He and his nurse tried to get the stone out but it was stuck fast.  Matthew was sent home and I was told to wait by the phone while my doctor consulted with a general surgeon at the hospital.

The surgeon here was not comfortable with taking the stone out, so very early this morning my dear friend Mindy and I took Matthew to a hospital an hour away that has an ENT doctor. We were told Matthew would be seen in between the ENT's regular cases.  I resigned myself to the possibility of a  long day.  I was pleasantly surprised by only a one-hour wait in the triage area.

 It was determined that the stone was indeed stuck very tightly and that the best way to remove it would be under anesthetic in the OR.  We were shuffled off to the day-surgery ward where Matthew was prepped for his little procedure.   This took about another hour.  The anesthetist knocked him out with a little gas, the ENT got out his spelunking tools and the rock was removed.  The whole procedure took four minutes.  He woke up very quickly and in good spirits.  After inhaling a popsicle in post-op and spending a little time monitoring vital signs we were on our way home shortly after lunchtime.  With a pit-stop at McDonald's.  Matthew needed a cheeseburger very badly after fasting all night and half the day.

I couldn't get over how nice everyone was to us and how kind and patient they were with Matthew.  They all got a good chuckle out of him and his little stone.  He charmed everyone he talked to.

Mindy is a superhero friend.

Waiting for the doctor.

The doctor left his cool toy behind!

Waiting some more

Waiting is easier when you can play with Mindy's phone.

Boo Bankie helps a boy be brave.

What all the fuss was about.

Why did he put the rock in his ear??  We asked him many times and he always told us that he "fell on it."  I asked him again right after his operation and maybe it was because there was a little sedative left in his system, but it was then that the truth came out.  He told me his teacher was talking very loudly and he was tired of it so he stuck the stone in his ear so he wouldn't be able to hear her anymore.

I told him next time he wanted to do that he should use his elbow instead.

Ten

Then

Now

Happy Anniversary

First Days

Last week Emmett and Charlotte went back to school.  This year Emmett is in grade 4, Charlotte is in grade 2.  Charlotte started in a  new school this fall, as I took her out of French Immersion andenrolled her in her big brother's school. Charlotte is not missing her long bus ride at all and seems to be settling nicely in her new school.  I am not missing the parking nightmare at her old school and trying to juggle two school schedules!  Matthew started Kindergarten there today and handled drop-off like an old pro.

Here is the obligatory First Day of School in the Front Yard picture

Here's another one

Charlotte takes her Big Sister duties very seriously (when it suits her).

Settling in.

Harvest Time!

These were so good--I wish I could have grown more of them.

I seem to only grow vegetables in miniature.

The world's tiniest cantaloupes

It's a good thing my family doesn't depend on my gardening skills to eat.  What you see here is about all I got out of my garden this year.  There was one more tiny zucchini that we ate, a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes and maybe two more handfuls of beans, but never enough to make a whole meal from.  Ants ate my potatoes.  Oh well.  I can try again next year, right??  Or maybe I should just let a CSA do my gardening for me next year.

Now you are five.

Where's there's cake...

And new Lego...

There must be a little boy who is turning five.

Happy Birthday, Little Man! You've grown up so fast!

Summer is over??

The end of August went by in a flurry of activity.  Emmett and I went to summer camp.  It was his first summer at this camp, and once I did a little math the director and I realized that I had been going to this camp for the better part of 15 years.

There are no pictures of Emmett doing camp things since I didn't feel it was appropriate for me to stalk him with my camera as no other moms got to stalk their kids at camp.  He did really well and barring a few shy waves in the dining hall and our evening visits to get his bedtime meds, the only time I really talked to him was when I wandered down to the archery field to watch the Golden Arrow competition.  I scored major points with his cabin mates as I speak fluent Skyrim and Plants vs Zombies. (at first I didn't want to contribute to the video game talk with my game that involves killing mystical creatures with battle axes and other medieval weapons, but the boys were already talking about Call of Duty and Halo so I figured their parents were OK with a certain level of video game violence.)

I came home quite ill since most of the campers coughed on me at one point in the week or another, but thanks to Richard and my respite worker, I was able to relax and do very little but cough on the couch for a couple of days when I got home.

I had some special patients in my cabin this week: 

This is Ruby, the camp Director's dog. She was first in the water for polar bear swim every morning!

This is Ginger, another camp dog. She wanted to make sure I was OK after a fire work was set off after campfire one night. She stayed the whole night in my cabin, just to be safe.

We had a special visitor at camp!

I had plenty of human patients as well, but I don't feel right about posting pictures of other people's children on my blog without their permission, so suffice to say I saw my fair share of bloody toes and runny noses (and one puker) and leave it at that.