May 2012

Here are some pictures of other stuff we did in May besides Elizabeth’s surgery and our New York Tip:

We had lots of baseball practices and games for Tristan and Oliver.  Daniel coached Tristan’s team, which was fun for both of them.

Oliver:                                                                       

The younger kids loved playing on the playground near the baseball fields during Tristan and Oliver’s games:

Oliver continued bringing home fun little creatures every day during the last month of school.  One day he opened the door and called out, “Mom, don’t scream!”, which is always fun to hear.  I knew he must have brought home something crazy, so I tentatively peeked my head out of the kitchen to see him standing by the front door with a giant spider in his hand.  I told him to hurry and take it outside and put it down, but he wanted a picture of it so I grabbed my camera and went out.                                                  

When I got outside, this is what he was doing (I kept this picture small and put it after the other one because it’s kind of scary):

I can’t believe he’s so brave.  I was worried it was going to bite him, but he told me it was okay because he was watching the spider’s fangs the whole time to make sure it wasn’t about to bite.  The fact that it had fangs big enough to keep an eye on didn’t make me feel much better.

Just like Oliver, Henry is always on the lookout for an animal to catch.  Daniel took all the boys to Austin’s Park and Pizza for a father and sons activity, and I think Henry spent the whole miniature golf game catching toads.                                                                       

The girls and I were back at home doing fun girl things like making cupcakes (this is when Lizza still had her surgery bandages on.  Only Lizza could look so cute in surgery bandages wrapped around her head):

Besides catching creatures, Henry’s other obsession right now is dressing up and pretending to be any sort of super hero type guy (I guess this isn’t a recent obsession – he’s been doing this most of his life).  He got ahold of one of Tristan’s batting gloves and decided it gave him super powers.  He wore that thing for about 3 days straight.  It was extra helpful for when he used the force to open the doors at Target (he uses the force to open any automatic doors or elevators.  I haven’t ever explained to him how they work, so there’s a chance he really thinks he’s doing it).                             

Posing with The Glove of Power:                                                                              

Cynthia also likes dressing up, but she usually goes for more fancy accessories:

Here are the older five singing a Mother’s Day song to their grandmas (they just changed the words a little bit.) I love Henry’s shrugging shoulders in this:

A Mother’s Day picture of me with all my kids.  (We had just taken off Lizza’s bandages, which is why she is wearing them in the video above, but only has the headband on in this picture.)  I am happy and blessed to have all these good kids.                                                          

Reading on the couch together after clean-up time and baths – one of my favorite scenes. (I asked Rachel why she was grumpy in this picture, and she said it was because she couldn’t find her Harry Potter book). 

More reading.  Cynthia and Tristan discussing one of his books together.

Cynthia being cute with a ponytail and cowboy boots.  She is determined to keep getting older, which partly makes me happy, because every new stage she enters seems cuter even than the last, and she is learning so much.  But it also partly makes me sad, because I want her to stay at this stage forever.

My little bug hunters.  I love it.                                 

Rachel and Cindy playing with magnet dinosaurs on the fridge.  Cynthia is the luckiest kid to have five older siblings who love playing with her so much.  They fight over her in the morning when I take her upstairs (“I get to play with Cindy!  It’s my turn!  I said first!”)  It’s the kind of arguing that I just ignore as I smile and head downstairs to go back to bed.                                                   

Memorial Day.  We met some friends for bocce ball and swimming at our neighborhood pool.  First Daniel played some catch with the boys, and the little ones ran around in the grass.

Getting ready for some bocce ball.  I love this game.  There is no setting up, the rules are simple, and even little kids can play.                                                            

Swimming:

Lizza wasn’t supposed to be swimming quite yet because of her surgery, but we decided the splash pad at the pool would be fine.  She was so happy to be able to play in the water – she and Rachel were running around like crazy ladies.                                                      

Cool jumping pictures:

My girls:                                                                

My boys:                                                                

The next day was Tristan’s end of the year baseball party, so we were back at the pool again:

This was on the last day of May, and the last day of school for my older three.  All week Tristan had been setting up one of his lego sets on his little table for the younger kids to play with during the day.  It was a grand and generous idea, but Henry had a hard time remembering Tristan’s two simple rules:  don’t break the legos apart, and keep them on the table, so it didn’t last for long.  Whenever he has a hard time with something (using Tristan’s legos, coloring with markers, attempting to stand up while going to the bathroom), I tell him that he’s not allowed to do that anymore, and we’ll try again when he’s four.  Now I’m a little worried when he turns four next month he’s going to have a big list of things in his head that I’m supposed to let him do. 

As soon as all the kids were out of school I put them right to work.  Haha, just kidding.  It usually takes me a good two or three weeks to get around to coming up with a summer schedule, which I don’t mind, because it gives the kids some much-needed free time.  But Cynthia still does her best to help out around the house.  Here she is doing a reverse silverware job.  She calls it “doin’ silver”, and it involves her getting back out all of the silverware that Henry has put away, and lining it up on the counter in neat rows.  What would I do without her?

Elizabeth’s Surgery

The week before we left for New York, Lizza had surgery on her ear. 

When she was born her right ear was almost completely folded over (it’s called a constricted ear deformity).  We were told there was nothing really we could do about it until she was 5 or 6, and then she could get surgery done to correct it. 

Daniel spent his first night home from the hospital researching it, and he found a company in England that sold little plastic forms that could be fitted inside the ear to help the cartilage harden in the right position.  We ordered some of those right away and then did our best to keep her ear taped up for the first 6 months of her life (after that she wouldn’t stop ripping the tape off, but also by then the cartilage wasn’t going to change much anyway). 

Keeping her ear taped up with the form inside helped a little bit (it was definitely better than when she was born), but it was still pretty noticeable (especially since she was bald for a long time). 

The funny thing is that she has never cared about her ear at all, which I think is a big blessing (also that she doesn’t have any hearing problems).  I thought that as she got older she would start to feel self-conscious about it, but she ended up having the perfect personality to deal with having a quirky little birth defect.  We had mentioned to her a few times that when she was 5 or 6 she would have surgery to help her ear, and as it got closer to her surgery date we talked to her about it a little more. 

A few months ago she was looking at pictures from when she was younger, and she came running to me shouting, “Mom, you will not believe this!  I was looking at pictures of me when I was a baby, and my ear is so weird!  It kind of looks like an elf ear!”  Then she stopped and looked in the mirror – I could tell she was studying her ear carefully – and she got a half surprised/half disgusted look on her face.  Then she said, “Mom! It might even look like a troll ear!”

I started laughing, but inside I was worried that she was going to be sad about her ear now (I was thinking, well at least now she’ll only have a few months of dealing with being self-conscious).  It didn’t even phase her, though – she left the room just as happy as she always is.  It was just like, “hmm, that’s kind of funny to have a troll ear.  Crazy.  I am so cute.  I think I’ll go hunt for bugs now.” 

Anyway, her surgery was scheduled for May 9th.  I took some “before” pictures that morning:

Here she is with some “happy surgery day” presents (I knew she was going to be nervous that morning, so I wanted to do something fun to distract her).  She also got some special drinks (she wasn’t allowed to eat anything that day, but she could drink clear liquids until 3 hours before the surgery). 

One of her special presents was a little diary book.  I thought it might be fun for her to write about her surgery.  I also thought she would just write in it that day, and then use the rest of it for coloring in, but she loved the idea of having a diary and she took it really seriously.  Since her surgery, she has written in it almost every day (and sometimes multiple times per day).  She always draws cute little pictures to go along with her entries. 

Here is her first entry: “Today is my surgery and I am kind of happy and nervous”

Then she drew a picture of her laying on a bed and a doctor about to cut her with some scissors.

She also wrote about how Henry was a little jealous of the drink situation (he kept complaining about how it wasn’t fair that only Lizza got to have surgery):

“Henry wants to have a surgery because I get special juice.”

Another one of her presents was a pack of gum, and she wrote about sharing it with the other kids:

“And when we are done I will share my treats with OTR”

(OTR = Oliver, Tristan, and Rachel.  I had told her I didn’t want Henry and Cindy to have gum)

We dropped off Henry and Cynthia at a friend’s house (the older kids were at school), and then headed down to the surgery center in Austin.

There was lots of waiting:                                           

She was allowed to bring one “cuddle item”, and she chose to bring along her faithful dog, Frenchy, who has been with her for many years. 

The cutest surgery patient ever, all set in her gown and ready to be wheeled into the surgery room.  She was being such a good sport, but I could tell she was pretty nervous, because her little heart was beating super fast.  I distracted her by pointing out a tiny bug that was crawling along the top of her bed.  We decided it had come to visit her because it knew she loves bugs.

She wrote about it later in her diary:

“Oh, and at the surgery a bug landed on my bed and I am happy cause I love bugs.”  I love her picture – she’s holding Frenchy and you can see the little bug on her bed.

Daniel and I couldn’t be in the surgery room with her, so we waited anxiously in the waiting room.  About 2 hours later they wheeled her in to us.  The actual surgery only took about 1 1/2 hours, but it took her another half hour to fully wake up (although she was still pretty groggy).

We couldn’t see her ear yet, because she was all bandaged up, but the doctor told us it had gone really well:

Here she is eating a popsicle, which she immediately threw up.  We had to stay in recovery for about an hour after that, because she was having a hard time holding anything down. 

We finally were able to take her home.  She felt pretty sick at first, but about an hour after we got home she perked right up, and recovered really well after that. 

She was pretty pleased with the giant “get well” cookie my friend had made:

She made sure to document that in her diary:

She had to wear all of her bandages for four days.  She was a really good sport, even though it was itchy and annoying. 

Here is Daniel taking the bandages off.  Lizza was so nervous about this (so was I – after I took these pictures I had to leave the room).:

Cleaning her ear off.  Her hair was so matted to her head – I think she had been pretty sweaty with all those bandages on for so long.  I’m really glad Daniel is good at things like this – I was still too nervous to look at it.

I love this picture of them.  Daniel is smiling and telling her how great it looks, and she is still panicked that he took the bandages off.  I think she had mixed feelings about the whole thing, and was just feeling emotional.

After a bath.                                                          

It was still pretty bruised and swollen, but we were really happy with the results:

She had her follow-up appointment with the doctor the next day.  After the bandages were taken off, our instructions were to have her wear a wide headband covering her ear for 6 weeks day and night, and then just at night for another month after that. 

She also was supposed to take it easy for the next few weeks, which was hard.

“And I am sad cause I cannot go outside or the pool or being wild”

Now it has been almost 6 weeks, and we are getting excited because this week she gets to go back for another follow-up appointment, and hopefully she can take the headbands off during the day after that.

She really has been a good sport about wearing them, and she always reminds me to put one on quickly after she bathes at night.  I think she looks super cute in them.

Here is what her ear looks like today:

No more elves or trolls around here!