Day 25: Tonsils

Today was the big day. Got up early (and had a little trouble waking up... grrr) and got the kids up and ready to go.

Sabrina was excited, Mom was nervous, Edgar was helpful. We packed Sabrina into her orange chariot, and headed to the clinic for her 7:30 AM surgery, just her and daddy.

your chariot awaits.

pre-surgery selfie

dressed and ready.

We got to the office, filled out paperwork, and Sabrina and I went back to change into her "fish pajamas" and "party hat" and meet/get quizzed by several flavors of nurse and doctor. We had enough time to hurry-up-and-wait that we got to take lots of silly pictures:

paperwork.

Bats.

Then, Sabrina was led to the "party room" with the promise of watermelon-flavored anesthetic gas, and I went to the waiting room to do the waiting room thing. After a while, the doctor came out to inform me that the surgery was successful, there was no bleeding, everything was great, and that after getting in there, he could tell that Sabrina really needed the surgery. It seemed a little sales pitchy to me, but what do I know. Anyway, the operation was a success. I called Jen, and waited some more. Jen arrived, and about 10 minutes later, they called us into the recovery room because Sabrina had woken up.

She woke up sad. She was uncomfortable, and sad, but brave. She wanted the IV and machines off her, and wanted to take them off herself. She was a good drinker, and had drunk 3 cups of water and had a popsicle before we even headed home. Apparently good hydration is the key to recovery, pain management, and everything else, so let's keep the drinks going.

Immediately after waking up.

Get these things OFF me.

My wife is HOT.

As I mentioned a few days ago, we're sponsoring her drinks today in lieu of the Jog-a-thon. She very much hit her maximum. 12+ drinks, and we lost count.

Sabrina came home to snuggle grandma (who had come to watch Betty), and set up in our bedroom eating ice cream and watching Netflix.

 

a little green around the gills.

... but nothing strawberry ice cream can't fix.

After 4 bowls of ice cream, she started to slow down. Then she threw up. Then she was back on the ice cream. Oh well. I took a nap until Edgar came home from school.

Edgar was such a prince today. He picked up Sabrina's homework for her (without being asked), and sat down and did a week's worth of homework at the kitchen table.

I had some Sabrina snuggle time this afternoon, reading some books, and watching TV with her. Edgar was as solicitous and helpful as he could be. Here's Edgar bringing a gigantic glass of chocolate milk to Sabrina. I do believe she eventually drank it all.

baby snuggles,

By dinnertime, Sabrina got pretty owly-- she was sick of the same old foods, and wanted something different. Jen got her to eat most of a bowl of chicken soup, and she envied her brother's lunchables, so she tried them, but the crackers and meat were too much, so she ate all the cheese.

After dinner, a bit of snuggling, some reading of Winnie-ther-Pooh, and bedtime. By doctor's orders, Sabrina is sleeping in a recliner in my bedroom. Edgar is sleeping on our bed, next to the recliner, because he refuses to be parted from his sister. Jen and Betty are sleeping in a recliner in the living room. I'll be joining Edgar and Sabrina in the room shortly, for what I anticipate to be a long and tough and not very restful night.

Unlike these two, who will sleep relatively peacefully.

Doctor says Sabrina's pain will get much worse before it gets better. I'm not looking forward to the stress of the next few days, but we can handle this, right?

Long ago, I took Jen skiing. Jen is not a very good skier (despite being a born and raised Utahn), and I made the mistake of taking her on a slope that was simply too steep for her to handle. At the time, though, the only way out of her predicament was to continue down the hill, so I kept repeating "You can get down this hill!" to her. That's been our motto in life. "You can get down this hill"... because sometimes that's the only way you CAN go.

So... we can get down this hill.

Day 24: 'zausted

It takes a lot of work to keep this household running right. I feel like I've been running all day, and I'm super tired.

I had a hard time waking up the kids this morning. Once they were awake, I needed a shower and shave. While I was in the shower, Sabrina yelled in and asked if she had ALL her habits-and-chores done early, if she could watch a movie. I said yes. After my shower, I saw Edgar asleep on our bed. I assumed he had also done his habits-and-chores and was resting (as he complained of being SO TIRED when I woke him up). Well, I thought wrong. After packing lunches and getting ready to head out the door, I hollered to Edgar and found him in the same clothes he wore yesterday, having not eaten breakfast, and generally being not ready. It was a struggle getting him to get up and realize that we were late. I had to almost bodily drag him out the door to get him going this morning.

After walking the kids to school, I came home a little overwhelmed by all that I planned to do today. Thankfully, my sweet wife offered to do some of the things (which is WAY AWESOME and more than her share). We make a good team. I did dishes and washed the furnace filter, and finished cleaning the space heaters, and put Betty's crib together upstairs. I planned out (mostly) my radio show for Friday. Jen made a yummy lunch, and we played a short version of our weekly board game, listening to cuts from the radio show. I was sleepy and about ready to drop, so I napped in the chair in the living room with Betty squirming on top of me.I don't know how much time passed before her squirming turned into a full-on tantrum, but thankfully Jen rescued me, and I dropped into bed like a dead man. I was just barely able to pull myself out of bed to walk to school to pick up the kids.

We had Edgar's good friend Jon visit us for the afternoon. Jon helped with the taking-the-garbage-out chores, and then Edgar and Jon spent the rest of the afternoon on the trampoline. I cleaned the toilets (yes, ladies, I do toilets. No ladies, I'm taken.) and read up on Sabrina's surgery for tomorrow.

I finished everything I planned on getting done, so I took a fussing Betty and held her and attempted to play video games while Jen fixed dinner. Betty has been super fussy today. I hope she's not getting sick.

HULK SMASH!

Ahh.... better.

Jon's father, our friend "Uncle Brian" came over and snuggled Betty (and promised to give her a silly name to match Edgar-Edgar and Stevie-Brina).

After dinner, I headed back to KMUZ for another shift of answering phones. This time, the music was good, the calls were plentiful, and I had an enjoyable time.

After answering phones, I hit the grocery store. I prefer shopping after 9 PM or so-- there are fewer people in the store. I remarked before that I was surprised how chaotic the grocery store is in the middle of the day...

Sabrina has her tonsils out in the morning, so I stocked up on every imaginable type of juice, popsicle, ice cream, applesauce, and everything else.

Jen tells me Betty squalled nearly the whole time I was gone. That's not fun. Jen helped me put groceries away despite her tiredness (go Jen!)

Now it's time for both of us to get some rest. Morning comes early, and tomorrow's a big day.

Day 23: Rocktober

Ack! how did it get to be the fourth day of October already? Also, how did it happen that I had this post almost finished and then somehow I hit control-z to undo something and Blogspot deleted the whole thing? Didn't even keep the draft that I hit "save" for. Grr.

,....anyway, I can't believe our September Gurl is already 3 weeks old! Where has the time gone?

Well, for good or bad, today was a jump with two feet back into normalcy (or at least what passes for normalcy today). I had a hard time convincing the kids that it was actually morning and time to wake up and get ready for school. Sabrina at least was excited to go.

With the tonsil surgery upcoming, Sabrina will be missing school picture day, and the annual Jog-a-thon. She was especially sad about the Jog-a-thon. Jen took inspiration from one of our favorite children's books, and decided to sponsor Sabrina on something she could do. Both of our kids really want to collect at least $30 to get the nifty jog-a-thon t-shirt. We pledged $4 for every lap Edgar makes on the track, and we pledged $4 for every drink Sabrina drinks the day of her surgery. Let's hope she stays super hydrated.

I fell into laundry and dishes with a will this morning. Stuff got gross sitting on the counter over the weekend-- Dad fail.

I did get just a short time snuggling Betty while Jen took a shower and got ready for the day.

Extra snuggly.

I did my annual cleaning-of-the-space-heaters ritual. We've discovered if you don't clean them, they smell like dust on fire for the first few weeks you use them. As the guy who has to work to pay the bills around here, I was really hoping for a few weeks of not having to either heat or air condition the house, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. We've spent all summer and early fall with the AC cranked to the max (thanks, pregnancy hormones!), and now it's cold enough we need to heat the house instead.


Here's a cute picture of Betty getting her breakfast all over her face:

...now why does that look familiar?












oh yeah:

Speaking of leaky milk, it appears that they are discontinuing our favorite brand of mammary leakage protection:

Johnson's. Keeps your shirt dry.

No other brand seems to work as well for Jen, and it looks like stores are selling out their stock of these. If you happen to run into a package or two, pick them up for us, please?


I spent a few hours answering phones for KMUZ's pledge drive. I enjoy the service KMUZ provides for the community, and love that there is a local voice for music here in Salem.

...that being said, I didn't look at the schedule when I volunteered for this block. I had to sit through 3 hours of prerecorded talk radio. I'm not a talk radio guy (I'm a music radio guy), and we didn't get very many phone calls, and I can't read when listening to talk radio, so I played Candy Crush on my phone for 3 straight hours, bored out of my skull.

Ran home, stuffed a sloppy Joe in my face, and then ran to school to pick up Edgar and Sabrina early. Thanks to a last-minute soccer practice cancellation, we took Edgar and Sabrina with us to our baby appointment and then on to Grandma and Grandpa's.

 Edgar said he had a bad day at school. Last year was a whole year full of bad days.

At Andaluz, we found that Betty is now 10 lb 6 oz, so well over her birth weight, which is super good for a 3-week old. Mama and baby are healthy and doing fine.

I slept while Jen and the kids listened to a book on CD all through traffic to Grandma and Grandpa's this time. For some reason, I cannot stay awake for books on tape. They're like Ambien, so I got a good nap in.

Visited with the folks and had a yummy dinner. Played a game of 3-handed [cutthroat] pinochle with Dad while Mom held the baby. Edgar was fascinated and wants to learn.

Then, a long car drive home. I was asleep for the first half (as they listened to the end of the book), but the book ended and I had to somehow wake up and drive home.

And now we are home, and I spent way too much time writing this blog and watching an episode of Charlie and Lola and trying to photoshop my baby's face onto a Fugazi album. Goodnight.

Day 22: Jiggety-jog

Just before turning in last night, look who visited our hotel room:

Mister Electabuzz makes a nice pair with the Magmar that I caught returning to Salem today. Yay for pokemon.

So today was the end of our vacation (if you're reading this in reverse order, I give much more details yesterday and the day before). The kids and I got up, had breakfast, and visited the video game room this morning-- yesterday, the afternoon sun was shining in the room so bad you couldn't see any of the screens. We played some video games, but nothing way serious. There was a fun car racing game that Edgar beat both Sabrina and I at. I think our steering might have been a little off... (=

Game room was next to the pool, and we were all dressed, so we spent ALL MORNING in the pool. We got all pruney. It started raining, but the pool was warm enough that we just swam in the rain.

At noon, we packed up and left the hotel. Since it was raining, and we were all tired, and baby was asleep, we just headed right back to Salem. Sabrina was disappointed when she realized that we had skipped a day of school for our adventures. "I don't like that trick, Mama."

Once we got to Salem we were hungry, so we stopped for ribs. Yum.

 I eat my peas with honey.

I've done it all my life.

It makes the peas taste funny

but it keeps them on my knife.

After that, it was thankfully home. Edgar wanted first thing to go to the trampoline and do some more pretending. Sabrina wanted to watch TV, and Jen and Betty wanted to nap in the chair.

or, stay awake in the chair.

Well, Jen and Betty didn't get much sleep, and I spent entirely too long going through vacation photos and writing three days' worth of blog, and fighting internet connection problems... but we got it done.

Dinner was leftover soup, and I ate all the leftover brisket from lunch. Then, more of the same for all of us. It was a nice little time to decompress.

Now the blog is all done, the kids are in bed, and Jen and Betty are snoozing in the chair. Life is GREAT.

Day 21: Beach Life

 Last night, after catching way too many pokemon in our hotel room, conquering the hotel pokemon gym, and drifting off to sleep, Jen woke me up in the middle of the night to take a fussing Betty. She was crying loud enough to potentially bother other guests, so I bjorn'd her up, and we had some adventures. I asked at the lobby where the best place to pace would be, as it was pretty stormy outside. The night concierge suggested the upstairs restaurant. So, I paced around an empty restaurant with a very cute newborn. She was pretty fussy (not Edgar-level fussy... after that, I can handle ANYTHING). Anyway, she wasn't settling down, so I decided to try a walk on the beach. As soon as we stepped out into the night air, she quieted down, and was asleep about 3 breaths later. We walked on the beach, getting my feet wet (a very important ritual for Alex at the ocean), and went back to the restaurant to quietly snuggle and catch some pokemon

(pokemon aside: There are SO MANY pokemon here in Lincoln City. Makes me want to throw rocks at playing Pokemon Go in Salem. I've been having to ration my pokeballs, only catching pokemon I really, really want. It drives Edgar crazy for me to leave pokemon uncaught. I complained to our cashier at the grocery store, and he said that's the challenge here in Lincoln City.)

Abundant marine life, in all its varieties.

 Got up this morning, watched some more DVDs, and then went to the pool with the kiddos.

THIS pool.

 Now. I've never been to one of those fancy Tahiti or Mazatlan resorts where they have the infinity pool right next to the ocean, but this is as close as I've ever come. Pretty cool. Yes, the pool was outdoors, but it was nicely heated, and I think we were the first ones in it that morning. We splashed around for quite a long while. I'm glad the kids took swimming lessons this summer. They're still not great strong swimmers, and still a little timid in the water, but they used to be downright afraid of the water.

After swimming (and some serious rest for Jen, who didn't get a good night's sleep), we hit town for the pokestops and the grocery store. We managed to get enough pokeballs and enough provisions for us to make it through the next day and a half. Somehow the grocery store trip was really exhausting for tired Jen and tired Betty.

We returned to the hotel and had lunch at the restaurant on the top floor. The views were spectacular, and the food was pricey but worth it.

A teaching moment

Stuffed after lunch, we settled in for a long afternoon in the hotel room. Jen tried to get a nap in, and the kids watched some Toy Story on DVD. I wanted to get a walk on the beach in, so I headed down to walk on the beach.

As I got out on the sand, the sun came out, and revealed a gorgeous day. The waves were crashing, cormorants and pelicans playing in the surf, magikarp and psyducks and all kinds of imaginary animals were out, too:

So, a perfect day, really... I tried to call Jen from my cellphone, but she didn't answer. So, I walked back to the hotel, and turned off the TV and told the kids they were coming to the beach with me. I tried to get Jen to come, but she was way too sleepy, grumpy, and tired, so this ended up being a good way to get the kids out of her hair.

I made the mistake of leaving my phone and camera in the room, so I don't have any pictures of our beach adventures, but we had a blast. We had some pretend-pokemon-battling (Edgar's favorite sport), some digging in the consistency-of-coarse-brown-sugar sand, some playing and splashing in the waves, rock climbing, tidepool exploring, wildlife seeing, good old-fashioned fun. The kids actually thanked me for getting them outside on such a lovely day.

Towards the end of our beach adventures, I saw a man down the beach pulling yards and yards of cloth out of a bag. I knew what was going on, so I told the kids they ought to watch that man. Now, my kids are NOT shy... so instead of just watching the man, they walked over and introduced themselves and asked what he was doing.

He was (of course) getting out a massive kite. I held the string while he launched it. The kids asked him where he got it, and he told them he made it himself. They were impressed. Then, the kite man had the kids help him set up, launch, and stake down two more big kites. He was very patient and explained to them how the kites went together, and how they worked. He tried to encourage them to hold onto the strings, but they were a little afraid to. He was a sweet old man, and I wish I had some better pictures of the kids and him. Instead, I just have a picture taken from our hotel balcony afterwards:

Boy, our hotel room was high up.

Of the three kites pictured, he made the center one, and the one on the left is extra high, by Sabrina's request.

We returned to our room exhausted and happy to find a mama and baby waking up from a nap. We started another movie on the DVD player, and enjoyed the sun streaming through our hotel room window. Jen and I spotted a pod of whales from our room.

Pictured: a whale spout. can you see it?

Jen and I are aware, although I'm not sure many of our landlocked Utah relatives are, that despite their mystique, whales are not much to see from shore. We saw spouts, and the occasional whale back, but to anyone who is interested in planning a vacation to do whale watching from shore, this is all you see. To us, that was fun, but it's certainly not worth spending all day looking for it. Better to catch it from the corner of your eye while Toy Story is on, or something...

Afternoon sun, over the balcony.

After a round of chips-and-dip in front of a movie for dinner (still pretty full from lunch), the kids and I snuck down to the pool again. We swam for another really long time. At exactly the right time, Jen and baby paid us a visit. Jen got some good pictures of us in the pool.

Then, we moved the party to the hot tub.

Edgar was freezing from getting out of the outdoor pool, but thought the hot tub was WAY too hot to touch, so he whimpered at water's edge:

Meanwhile, Sabrina and I had some relaxing times, and Jen dipped her toes in as well.

Blue hair = pool camouflage

Our hotel also has a sauna. Sabrina wanted to try, but she was unimpressed.

I took a fussy baby for another walk while Jen and the kids got settled in for the night.

Edgar loves reading to Sabrina. Sabrina loves Edgar.

Baby and I walked on the beach. Again, she quieted down immediately in the night air, and went to sleep just as quick. I ended up walking quite a distance down the beach in the dark, strapped to a sleeping baby.

I returned the sleeper to the room, and went for a sauna of my own. Although I don't think I have finnish ancestors, I sure love sauna/reading time. I melted the binding of the paperback I'm reading, but it was totally worth it.

Day 20: Escape

What a day!

Well, I got to sleep in this morning for the first, and maybe the last time in a very long time. Jen rolled me out of bed to listen to the morning session of General Conference. I rocked Betty and listened as Jen puttered around the house packing and getting ready for our day. I feel a bit guilty as I probably should have done more, but I was sleepy, and conference was on, and this warm baby on my chest was sooooo snuggly.

oh hello there.

After conference, it was determined that one of Edgar's two soccer socks had somehow disappeared in the laundry process over the last week. Having been watching the laundry, I can tell you I only washed one sock, so I don't know where the other one went. Both Sabrina and Edgar have been carping over how tight their soccer socks were, so I ran to the store and got them socks. So, the socks were adult Medium... Call it fatherly overkill, but they certainly won't be complaining about tight socks anymore. The new socks can probably double as pants.

We wanted to have our weekend gear packed in the car before we left for our first soccer game, but it didn't quite happen.

Almost ready to go...

We did get to Edgar's game on time, though, and were met there by my mom and dad. Betty got some grandma snuggles while watching Edgar play a solid soccer game.

very serious soccer fans.

We took grandma and grandpa and had a big family feast at Izzy's pizza before heading back to the field

 Sabrina had a good game as well, and then we bade goodbye to the grandparents, and returned home to pack up our remaining stuff. We loaded up our car and hit the road for Lincoln City.

It's a bit of tradition to do a trip to the coast with our young baby. We did it with both Edgar and Sabrina. We have always looked at the massive Inn at Spanish Head in Lincoln City from afar, and wondered what it's like to stay there. It's a 10-story hotel built on a cliff that runs from highway level (floors 9 and 10) down to the sand (first floor). We stayed on the 8th floor, with a spectacular ocean view.

(stock photo)

It was dark when we arrived, so we watched Sleeping Beauty and some special features on our in-room DVD player, and snuggled Betty on some chairs on her little co-sleeper bed.

The bedbugs here are REALLY big.

 Our hotel is infested-- LOUSY with pokemon. There's a pokestop and a gym close enough to our room, and there are SO MANY pokemon. I think I know what I'm going to do for the rest of the weekend.