Summer Summary – In Two Parts

PART ONE

Instead of trying to back blog about each individual event that happened over the summer, I have decided to just write about the whole summer all in one post.

Looks like I stopped blogging right around May – same time every year. I must have some type of mental break down when all the kids get out of school, and are here 24/7 with non-stop whining and arguing. I’m sure it’s not that bad, but I don’t remember very well. I do know that I enjoy having them back in school now. It’s so nice to be back on a regular schedule.

So I am looking back through pictures to help me remember what we did.

Here are the little boys at the zoo in May. They had a lot of fun. The weather was perfect. We actually went again today, but I didn’t have my camera. So I won’t be able to start and end with a zoo pic. :(

Thomas celebrated his 12th birthday in May. He asked for a strawberry shortcake. I don’t know if he remembers, but he asked for a strawberry shortcake when he was three. Sometime over the summer, he got a haircut and has decided that he prefers his hair short – we are all happy about that.

One of the major events of this summer was our vacation to Disney Land. It’s not very often that we take a family vacation. I’m sure it’s because we are afraid of having to be in such a small confined space like the car for hours and hours and hours together. I’m happy to say that it wasn’t as awful as I imagined it would be.

We did the drive to Orange County all in one day. It must have been the excitement of the final destination that kept everyone happy and agreeable. My new favorite way to pass the time in the car is to have an audio book. We listened to I Am Number Four. It wasn’t the best book, but it kept everyone occupied.

There was a slight problem when we arrived at our place of lodging, only to find out that they didn’t have any more rooms that would fit all of us. Yes, we did make a reservation. They were thinking that maybe we could share 3 rooms. Can you imagine the complete lunacy in suggesting that we share 3 separate villas for 4 days. Luckily we found someplace else to stay – A newer, brighter, cleaner place. Crisis averted – but not before I had a nervous breakdown at the front desk and bawled like a baby in front of the staff of idiots.

Here are my children walking away from us as they head out into the park with no adult supervision. It was hard for me to let them just go off and roam the park by themselves.

The girls got their faces painted.

The little boys were quite comfortable in the stroller that we were able to borrow from a friend – Thanks Mindy, we would have been super miserable without it.

 

We didn’t actually ride the Tea Cups – Blech!

We packed up and hauled in all of our own snacks, but for some reason we couldn’t resist the popcorn from the park. We also couldn’t stay away from the churros either – we ate way too many of them.

 
While we were there we celebrated Henry’s 4th birthday, and our 17th anniversary. We even got to wear special buttons and all of the workers congratulated us on our celebrations.

On the way home, we stayed at my Sister’s in Vegas. She was kind enough to pick up a Buzz Lightyear cake for Henry. That was his most favorite ride and he got to go on it several times.

A magnificent time was had by all and I am looking forward to more family vacations in the future.

 

** PLEASE PAUSE FOR A SHORT INTERMISSION **

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Oh, Poor Henry!

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT

From time to time, we have taken our kids to the emergency room for non-emergency situations. Croupy coughs or mysterious rashes with high fever in the middle of the night. Once on a Saturday afternoon for an eye injury where we were basically told that nothing was wrong and we just wasted a bunch of money. All this was before we had an after hours clinic here in our small village.

However, a week ago, we had an actual emergency that brought us once again to the ER. This time, we were accompanied by actual fear and panic.

Henry is very much an independent child who rarely asks for help. On this particular day, he was using our piano bench to climb up high enough to reach the TV power button. He didn’t ask for help, because he has done this by himself at least a million times before without any difficulty.

Exhibit #1 – The bench: Unsafe? Yes, and even though I have eyed the bare metal edges on the foot with trepidation, I chose to do nothing about it.

P.S. The bench did not come like this – there used to be rubber stoppers that covered the ends. However, they were not glued on and so they have been lost along with things like the boingy door stops and the spam can openers that unlock our bedroom doors.

One can only imagine what actually happened, because no one was watching Henry while he was climbing up to push the button. I was not even home at the time, and in Steve’s defense, he was in the bathroom. I have been amazed, throughout my life as a mother, at how many things happen while you are attending to the call of nature.

The only thing we know is that Henry was horribly hurt when the bench tipped over and his face smashed into the metal edges. Steve met him in the hallway to find him cupping the blood that was oozing from his chin. It looked minor at first, but upon further inspection he saw that Henry’s chin was flapping open and exposing quite a bit of flesh.

Luckily I was not very far away, and after Steve got Henry loaded into the car, he came and picked me up and we headed out. I had no idea what had happened and was concerned when I saw Henry sitting there howling into a blood stained towel. When I asked him what happened, Steve assured me that I would be sickened if I looked at the injury. I was picturing all sorts of awfulness, and so was actually relieved when we got the ER and they took the towel off.

Henry waiting for the numbing gel to kick in before getting the Lidocaine shot.

The actual wound – but still this does not portray how bad it really looked.

 

At first they tried to stitch him up without sedating him, but they finally had to put him out. He had to have stitches under the skin, and inside his mouth as well as to close up the cut – 20 in all.

All we could think about is how much more awful it could have been.

Steve left in such a hurry that he was not able to explain what was going on to Hannah who was immediately summoned to take care of Jack because she was the only one home. She was extremely worried and scared to be left so abruptly alone and so she tried to call Grammy who wasn’t home, and my sister Tauna who didn’t answer and finally Grandma and Grandpa Lauer who live in Florida and are two hours ahead of us, but were actually still awake at 10pm EST.

We are very much thankful for our neighbor who helped round up all of our kids and took them to her house to stay until we got home.

We were sure that the rest of the night and the next few days were going to be a trial for us, but Henry was just fine. He never once complained that he was hurting. This is amazing considering our previous experiences with Henry and his dental work.

I have to say the worst part of this whole business was actually getting the stitches out. No matter how many times we told him it would not hurt, he resisted. It took three of us - me, the nurse, and one of the office ladies to pin him down. I would never want to criticize or say that I could do her job better, but I am sure that I could have taken those stitches out faster than the nurse.We struggled with him for half and hour. I was actually sweating by the time we were done.

This is how he looks today. I am worried about the decision that we made when we decided not to call in the plastic surgeon. I know with time the scar will fade, but this is still pretty bad.  I guess we will just have to wait and see what it looks like when he’s bigger.

There’s a first for everything

In all of our years of dental visits, we have never had one turn out even close to the way it did for poor Henry.

At the end of February, we had to take Henry in to get some cavities filled. The actual visit went well. He drank some special potion and then drifted off to happy land as they fixed his teeth. Steve brought him home and things were great. He wasn’t even upset or anything.

Except, he was hungry. Really hungry, because he had to skip breakfast. What do you feed a hungry little 3 year old boy with a super numbed up cheek? Well fruit loops of course. So, Steve made him a nice big bowl of cereal to chow down on.

(I will refrain from any type of negative comment here. I will only mention that I strongly urged Steve to give him some apple sauce or yogurt, but Henry wanted cereal, so he got cereal.)

I’m sure Henry didn’t even have a clue that he was chewing up the inside of his cheek, not even when blood was oozing out of his mouth like drool. I walked into the kitchen to find the gruesome site and knew that it was going to be bad.

So what does it look like when this happens?

 
I know it looks like the camera was at a funny angle, or that there was some sort of fish bowl effect going on, but no, it’s his swollen cheek.

It a rough week for my poor little guy. When the Novocain wore off, there was much pain for him. Not only did his teeth hurt, but the cankers that had formed on his cheek were awful. We had to endure never ending cries of, “ My cheek, my cheek, my cheek, ow ow, my cheek!”

This picture was taken a couple of days after the trauma.

He was still a little swollen

Luckily, he is all back to normal now, but it was pretty bad there for a while.

When Henry Turned Three

This year we had a Toy Story birthday for Henry. He got a brand new shiny Buzz Lightyear and I decided to buy him a store bought cake instead of trying to create my own character cake disaster.

Steve took Henry and the others big kids to see Toy Story 3. It was Henry’s first trip to a movie theater and he was good to sit through the whole movie. He even did better than Libby who always finds some reason to get out of her seat and bother the others.

Henry is constantly pushing the boundaries. He is a pretty determined kid. He loves to play outside and heads out whenever he pleases. He got a Bubble mower for his birthday, because he loves to follow us around as we mow the lawn. The best thing we ever did was put the gate up this spring so that he could not escape out of the backyard.

He is not that great at adapting to new things. We are taking part in a neighborhood Joy School. So every Tuesday and Thursday he has a howling fit as we head off to other people’s houses to play for a couple of hours. He always has a great time and is fine when I pick him up, so I don’t know why he has problems in the first place.

He is now officially potty trained – woo hoo! Except at night – of course. I wonder how long that will take?

He loves to play with cars and always has to have one to carry around with him. He also loves the movie Cars too, but we have not watched it for a while. That’s ok, because we watched it every day for like 6 months, so we needed a break.

I think he’s growing up too fast, but I know I can’t do anything about it.

Let the Games Begin!

This week I took Henry to the store and we bought “Big Boy Diapers” (pull ups) just for him. Thus launching us into the
Wild World of POTTY TRAINING.

Things started off slowly, but soon Henry wanted to go potty every 5 minutes – fun fun! However, he still found time between frequent potty breaks to soil his Big Boy Duds in a bad way.

Today though, was a day for celebration. No messy pants for
us – YAY! Yes, I do realize that it might not happen again for a while, but still we were excited.

Because Henry loves to play (read make a mess) in the bathroom,
I have had a child lock on the bathroom door. But after two days of having to open the door every time Henry had the urge, I decided to take the lock off the door.

Today I came home to this

You can’t really see it, but there is a hand towel in the sink covered in liquid hand soap; and yes, the water is running.

You would probably think that he is undressed so that it will be easier for him to just drop his undies and go potty - right? Nope, this is just how Henry likes to spend his days. Who needs clothes in the middle of winter anyway - huh?

The boots though, what a fashion statement! He loves his boots. Sometimes he can only find one boot, and then he throws a black tennis shoe onto the other foot.

He is going to be a trendsetter, this one.