This is really off topic, but it is stuff on my mind.

1st - “Say Yes”

When I had just had my 1st son, Gabriel, my Mom (whom I think was a good parent and all) gave me a piece of advice - that I liked, and try to follow. Her basic advice was “say yes to them whenever possible, there will be plenty of ‘nos’”. So - with small children at least - this is an interesting challenge. I have found myself on many ocassions battling back and forth with my wonderful, brilliant and willful son Gabe (Micah is younger and generally more compliant - so not so much him yet). In any case - yesterday was a somewhat tough day (more on that next) and I did not see Gabe much at all. In the late afternoon when we all finally were at peace at home, I wanted to take Gabe out for some 1×1 time. Since he just got his “orange stripe belt” from Karate - our tradition is to go to J&R and get a (acceptable for small children) video game for his GameBoy (I know - oldschool - he loves it). I also took the opportunity to see the MacBook Air :).

Anyhow - the point soon… So - when we left - I made sure to tell him that this was his time and that there were now “no rules” - and that he just had the uber-yes - whatever he wanted right now was going to be OK (within reason, but we did not have to say that). In any case - it was amazing just to see how his demeanor lit up. In general life - there ARE lots of rules for a 5 year old boy. “Don’t talk about buts all day”, “stop punching your brother”, “please eat anything besides the junk you are begging me for”, etc, etc. It can cause tension between us as he is willful and it is a parents job to help their kids learn appropriate boundaries. In any case - saying yes to Gabe yesterday was rewarding. We simply went out together for ~2 hours - he smiled, we laughed and talked - and he did not ask for anything unreasonable. He is a great kid

  

 

 

Adenoids and Ear Tubes

So I mentioned that yesterday was a tough day. Micah - my other great kid had some minor surgical business yesterday. I say minor with some difficulty - because anytime your kid goes under - it is scary! It turns out that these surgical outpatient procedures are VERY common.

Adenoids you say - what the (*&^# is an adenoid?

There you are - it is a thing in your head, behind your nose - near your ears. In Micah’s case - they were inflamed since he was small - and it made it so he could NEVER breathe out of his little nose. Not only this - but it messed with his ears. As it goes - he had some ‘glue’ in his ears that was starting to mess with his hearing. So - they put these tiny, tiny tubes inside his middle ear! You can’t see them - they are really inside, but they help drain the gluey junk from his middle ear (gross right!). Anyhow - these ear tubes went in - and the adenoids were deleted (some odd, non-bloody erasure of adenoids - I don’t really get it).

What this meant for us: We went in @ 730 AM, wiated, went to the pediatric waiting area were we put him in some partial hospital gowns (he began to freak out here - he is scared of doctors after too many ENT specialist visits where they shove a tube up his nose). He then freaked out when they took his temperature under his arm. Then (thankfully) they came and gave him a valume like drink that made him REALLY happy - sorta drunk, relaxed. He was singing, bopping around and generally enjoying life… for 10 minutes till the doctor (Dr Richard Rosenfeld who we love and is seemly regarded as tje best ENT on the Tri-state area) came to get him. That was @930 AM.

We then went to wait till 1000 AM - whe Dr Rosenfeld came to get us and let us know all was well, done, happy, etc. Alas - this is where the fun began for us. You see - children wake up ‘freaked out’ from anesthesia - really they do. We saw some other kids freak out pretty well. Micah - being generally passionate - elected to freak out for 150-200% of the normal freak out time - some ~50 minutes of raw, ugly, painful screaming, writhing, pitching about, etc. Essentially - he was all ‘wired up’ with an IV, heart monitors, thermometer etc. He really was very unhappy. Shannon and I had to hold him, console him, talk him down - and generally let him wear himself out. It sucked. It was not good.

From there - we let him rest for 1 hour-  then went back to pediatric wiating for another hour. He freaked out only on and off till we went home. Once home - he was much better - just like a kid with a minor flu.

The surgrey was a success - he is fine. This was minor as surgical procedures go - so my heart goes out to any parent who has to watch their kids go through serious medical procedures.

Anyhow - here he is - last weekend @ grandmas on his toy mortorcycle:

 

I love my boys:

Chris

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