Home again, Home again...

So we're back.

Phew.

The boy burst into tears on the way home more times than I could remember while driving back because he just bloody well wanted to be home and snuggle with his brother. They really are a love fest. I have no idea what happened, but it's great. It was not the best drive I've ever had, but Mom was great and Mary Poppins calmed the boy through the last leg (half of me feels like a cheatin' mom for relying on the DVD player, and half really couldn't care less what the first half thinks).

I didn't bring a cable to move digi pics from camera to blog so here's the highlights of the trip via digicam. It ends with some close ups of the ear, which btw, he's looked at and he's VERY excited by. We've been clear that it isn't done "cooking" yet, and he gets that.

Thing Two at Universal Studios on 1/30/08, being made into a tiger (this girl was GREAT!). I also knew it was his last day with hair for awhile, so...sigh...

He pretty much walked up to anyone who would listen, growled at them, then told them that he was a tiger. (Duh)

Day of, 2/1/08.

La Brea with my Mom 2/5/08.

Venice fun with Jessica 2/6/08.

The water was remarkably uncold, and the kids were just spectacular (if soggy).

Sam and Jess sacked out

Snuggly kids drying off

Kidspace Museum, you can see them climbing up "water drops" waaaaaay up into the ceiling. An amzing little museum in Pasadena. 2/7/08

Riding tricyles at same museum.

Bored at lunch.

The unveiling with Dr. Reinisch and Tracey, the spectacular surgical assistant. 2/8/08

Thing Two and the chair. He LOVED operating this chair. 

The ear, 2/10/08. We weren't supposed to uncover it yet, but he'd pretty much mauled parts of the gauze and he'd completely jarred the stickum on the cup, so...we cleaned the gauze up, restuck the cup and I took the opportunity to take pics for posterity. The color continues to improve.

I know it looks completely frankenstein at this point (how apropos with CraftLit doing Shelley's book right now) but it's already a huge improvement over the first day of unveiling. It's really an extraordinary journey!

Ear!
HeatherViaPhone

One and a tenth . . .

Starting sock two for Sam. Thank God her feet are smaller than mine. :-)
HeatherViaPhone

Yeah . . . So . . .

We were bored!
HeatherViaPhone

What's Thing Two's surgery about!?

I realized that not everyone knows why we did this.

Thing Two was born with Microtia, a not-very-rare birth defect that (usually) affects the right side of the face. Lucky for us, Thing Two was born with a middle and inner ear that seem to be working fine and no extra problems with jaw or face. The main problem was that his ear was small and he has no ear canal. We've done the surgery backwards, ear first, canal next (if he's a candidate) b/c getting accurate information is a bit tricky. We'd been told that the canal surgery was too risky at this age due to a nerve bundle in the jaw.

Our doctor, John Reinisch, as has been previously stated, is spectacular, and he works with a canal surgeon who does canal reconstructions on kids as young as 2-1/2. So. That's for later.

It sounds like ear reconstruction is just vanity surgery, but in our family, Thing Two runs a pretty high risk of needing glasses and he wouldn't have been able to wear them with the ear he was born with. That and UV sunglasses are really not optional for kids in AZ. They can get damaged eyes.

So.

Here we are.

Wraps come off tomorrow.

Eek!

What's on the needles. . .

Socks for Sam's
HeatherViaPhone birthday in Socks That Rock colorway Dixie Chicks

Thing Two's recovery

Thing Two and jessica at the beach.
HeatherViaPhone

More at doc's Monday night
HeatherViaPhone

Dr. Reinisch: Miracle Worker

Here's the good doc taking some of the dressing off of Aiden's shaved pate. He's looking VERY good and though he looks all dour in the pic, Dr. Reinisch and Aiden were doing a good job cracking each other up throughout this procedure.

The medical office is COMPLETELY wired to a DVD with flat screen TVs everywhere. So, when meeting with small children in the room, he clicks the TV on and chats along with the parents. Bloody brilliant.

However, this time there was a female assistant (Tracey) who I didn't get a pic of. Aiden--true to form--immediately started flirting. The doctor told my Mom (as he'd told me) that on the day of the surgery no one wanted to knock him out b/c he was so much fun.

He whimpered and started to tear up when they took the drains out (ugh) but he recovered pretty much immediately. I think it was a huge relief to get these nasty plastic tubes and bulbs off of his back/neck.

They re-gauzed him so he still has a white helmet, but more of his head is showing through. It's not so packed with gauze and he got a new ear cup--this one with blue smiley faces on it. the first had yellow ones. I thought this was something the doctor did, but apparently each cup COMES WITH two little smiley face stickers. I don't know if on certain procedures they perform some actual function or if it's just a nice company.

Either way, it made the boy smile.

More soon...

Aiden Monday night getting first dressing replaced. cute buzz cut!
HeatherViaPhone

Thing Two's eye . . .

Poor baby's eye swelled shut-per doc's prediction. boy is also modelling two hats at once. . .
HeatherViaPhone

Thing Two update

At 2:35am I heard this little voice say, "Mommy, can I sleep here?" So Thing Two climbed in bed with me. The glow from the LA sky illuminated his face and his poor eye, which is--as predicted--completely swollen shut. I'm sure I'll be posting a pic to that effect later today.

Cold compresses don't seem to be helping and the drains aren't draining so much today (ugh) but aside from being occasionally annoyed from his closed eye, he really seems to be doing quite well today. I gave him some regular Tylenol when he climbed in bed with me, but he's needed nothing so far today. He took his antibiotics without complaint as well.

Andrew and Thing One are on their way home and tomorrow Mom comes out to help me. Thing Two is looking forward to seeing Grammy. Today we have brunch with friends and then a Superbowl party at the Stone's house. If this morning is any indication, Thing Two will be having a rather nice day. Quiet and good. Bummer that the skies have opened. We didn't bring an umbrella...but seriously, if that's the only thing that goes wrong...

Knitting is progressing nicely. Thing Two likes his hats (two hats) and crown (from Knitting Daily, I think) which I knit while he was in surgery. He wears them on top of all the gauze. I'll get a pic of that too. Working on socks for Sam now as I left the pattern for Dad's socks at home.

C'est la guerre...

Censorship alert

I haven't read the book. NAYY, but I think the author's defense is quite good. I'm linking to the Amazon review page too.

What kinda car am I???

Goofy, but...

I'm a Lamborghini Murcielago!

You're not subtle, but you don't want to be. Fast, loud, and dramatic, you want people to notice you, and then get out of the way. In a world full of sheep, you're a raging bull.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Surgery update:

So if you work your way backwards through the blog you can see updated pics and learn why we had the surgery here.

It's 9pm on Saturday night and the boy's in bed and asleep--happily so, too. His right eye--the one closest to the surgery site is starting to swell, but that's normal. Scary, but normal.

When he woke up this morning he faded in and out of being disoriented and very alert. He also faded in and out of a fever. He took his antibiotics (against his will) and only needed regular Tylenol twice (once was my decision as a preemptive strike). We're using the Co-Tylenol for sleep and it seems to be working just fine. No nasty side-effects.

We decided to take him to the Santa Monica Pier. We borrowed a stroller from the Stones (My best friend's family with whom we are staying--actually in their above-garage apartment. Just spectacularly wonderful of them and so SO good for us) and walked Aiden up and down the pier a couple of times, waiting for things to open. 

Showing us just how lucky we are and how well the universe is treating him, the boy won 850 tickets at a whack-a-mole game at the arcade, then rode the (enormous and very smooth) ferris wheel at the end of the pier, then proceeded to ride every kiddie ride that wouldn't jar the drains (ugh) descending from the surgery site. He's a little daredevil, and after a very good nap, he proceeded to play with Jessica, friend Sam's daughter, for a couple of hours. When we came up to go to bed we only had a little struggle with the meds, then we read a book, and he pretty much collapsed into sleep.

I'm wiped out too. This was the most I've done physically since getting over pneumonia and I'm only just starting to get my lungs back. However, I'm really happy with my progress too. We should see the doc on Monday (I hope to get these gawdawful drains out) and then finally on Friday. Then we'll find out what to do to learn if the boy is a candidate for canal surgery. Maybe he'll both have an ear AND be able to hear by next Christmas!

Thank you all so much for your support, comments, emails and phone messages. It's been tense, but very very good.

Santa Monica pier

Aiden day after surgery (with Tylenol)
HeatherViaPhone

Day after surgery

Aiden's head dressing.
HeatherViaPhone

Still waiting . . .

Hat number two for Aiden. Interweave holiday pg 58 with bigger gauge, four sts per inch.
HeatherViaPhone

UPDATE: Skin graft being placed

UPDATE: Skin graft being placed now. Nurse says surgery is going very well. LOVE this doctor team!
HeatherViaPhone

The god-awful yarn combo Thing Two picked for his post-op hat since They're shaving his head.
HeatherViaPhone

Waiting . . .

Holding pen during Aiden's reconstructive surgery. Nice folks. Boring room.
HeatherViaPhone

Mitten. STR in sherbet.
HeatherViaPhone

The Thorganizer

Yes, by the gods, YES!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=thorganizer

STR Broad street mittens from knitty.com 2002! Gorgeous and warm!
HeatherViaPhone

Aw...Huck!?

I've been enjoying watching Mike Hucabee lately. He's been on Colbert and Stewart and he's smart and funny. But his recent comments about the consitution (link pending) and this lovely bit about the South Carolina flag have made me a little more...how you say...nervous about the man.

Read on.
http://www.slate.com/id/2182358/

Thor, God of Thunder, Silenced. April 1, 1962--January 14, 2008

I first met Thor during my trial period as Andrew's fiancé. I understood during this time that if I was rejected by Nancy, Kathy, or Thor, there probably wouldn't be a wedding.

Um...pressure? 

You have no idea.

Nancy, Kathy, and Thor are some of the smartest, funniest, quickest, best people I've ever met. And while I grew to love them all, Thor always held a special place in my heart for a number of reasons:

1. I'd heard hundreds of stories about him while dating Andrew six years earlier (including his climbing Half-Dome, slipping, falling forty feet onto his head, then getting drunk at a New Year's party shortly thereafter and pulling his stitches out for fun);
2. I'd spent a considerable amount of time while dating Andrew wearing a discarded Rugby jersey of Thor's;
   
3. I didn't believe any of the stories about him were true... until I met him. And realized they'd probably been played down from their technicolor reality;
4. Any time you have the opportunity to meet an actual Norwegian Thunder God...well...it's a special event.

There are many who knew him better than I and many who will post about him with more of value to say, but he's in my heart too. He was...blustery. He didn't suffer fools. He was not an easy person.

But he was good. I'm sure there are female Democratic operatives (and Ann Coulter) who might like to disagree with me on that as he wasn't exactly P.C., but he never, never treated me with anything but respect (once he approved me as Andrew's To-Be). And honestly, Andrew and an age-old friendship aside, if he didn't like me, I (and anyone nearby) would have known it.

I think that moment where I earned his stamp-of-approval came at a bar in Atlanta where I was suffering from an hellacious spider bite. I asked the waiter if I could get a black tea bag and boiling water. He looked at me as though I had just stepped off the surface of Mars, when I explained that my Mother-in-Law-to-be had showed me how I could take a boiling hot tea bag and apply it to the bites to alleviate the pain/itch. (Yeah, it hurts, but it must open the pores enough to get some tannins in there b/c it works.) Anyhoo, the waiter said he had no tea bags but he'd be back with some bacon.

If I recall correctly there were a few beats of silence before we all started sniggering, thinking he was an idiot (I believe this is where I was also introduced to the phrase, "parts is parts..."). The waiter returned with several strips of bacon which he--no joke--scotch taped to my leg. There's photographic proof of this in one of Nancy's albums (and it worked for a bit!--thanks to Nancy for the photographic evidence...see below). That's the same night I took a picture of Nancy, Katie, and Thor. And that's the night Thor told Andrew it was okay with him if we got married.

It mattered.

Later, I managed to hunt Thor down in Croatia...Serbia...Kosovo I think...somewhere that was broken, that he was helping fix...and asked him if he would be able to make it to my husband's 40th birthday party. I fully expected an, "I'd love to, but..." response because, Dude...he was in Kosovo.

What I got was, "I wouldn't miss it for the world!"

He's the one who snuck upstairs with me to put ALL the candles on Andrew's cake. He's the one who carried it down dark and dangerous steps at Marie's Crisis

and presented it to Andrew (I was pretty largely pregnant at the time).

He's the one who could always make me laugh...generally inappropriately, but laugh a lot.

Anyway, like I said, there are plenty of hundreds of people who knew him better than me, but it's important to remember, right? It's important not just to be a Speaker For the Dead, but a Speaker OF the Dead. It's the only way he stays alive, yeah? In stories. In legends (but seriously, he did fall off Half Dome and took the stitches out at the party). And in our hearts.

And I fully expect to see a Facebook posting or get an email from him tomorrow saying,

"Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated..."

It would be like him...

A sampling of that good humor...from his Facebook page...posted today.

And a perfectly Thor picture.

You can read details of the tragedy here and a more complete version with his name in it from the kind Rhonda Cook at the Atlanta Journal Constitution here.

Broadstreet mittens/gloves

Socks that rock-metamorphic colorway
HeatherViaPhone

#($*&@#)(*%& Internets!

So I've been trying to post for over a week...I seem to be able to post via phone but not actual writing.
Sigh...
So many things, so much frustration.

If this posts, look for a REAL entry from me tomorrow!

Little Coriolis

Bootie two, part one
HeatherViaPhone

Cat Bordhi Genius

Baby booties part one
HeatherViaPhone

On the road. . .

The best part. . .
HeatherViaPhone

More. . .
HeatherViaPhone

More splendor. . .
HeatherViaPhone

Living room. . .
HeatherViaPhone