ace’s blog

It has been fixed but fixing it damaged something else. For shame. I feel that the “something else” is beyond repair.

Eli had his first birthday yesterday!! He, uh, turned one! He got a small cake and a simple present. He will get more presents this weekend when we have a few people over to help us celebrate more.

The cake

The Eli

The touching…

The tasting…

The destruction…

The cake…has died.

This is the only present we gave Eli. Aaron picked it out for him. Meri’s parents have a very similar toy at their house and Eli (and Aaron) really LOVE to play with it.

Aaron, Eli and I have had our fair share of ear problems within the past 6 months or so. Aaron has had it the “easiest”, with the least amount of occurrences. I had quite a few rounds of problems. Eli had it the worst, as far as we could determine.

We finally went to see an ENT and it was decided that he should have tubes put in his ears. We had that procedure completed 2 days ago. The procedure lasted about 15-20min. The recovery time was minimal, maybe an hour. Eli was groggy most of the day, due to the anesthesia. That took about 10-12hrs to finally get out of his system. The tubes have already made a HUGE difference in our lives.

1. Eli has started playing on his own again whereas before, he would always cling to mommy. When we put him down, he quickly crawls to the playroom.
2. He hears better now too! He is starting to try to say new words (I got the first one – dada!)
3. The biggest improvement is that Eli is mostly sleeping through the night again! Over the past 2 nights since the procedure, he has woken up only once each night, at 4:40am Tues night/Wed morning and then at 3am Wed night/Thur morning. Over the past 6 months, he was waking up about 3-4 times a night, sometimes more!

I wish we would have had the procedure performed much earlier than we did! Eli was 10 months old when the tubes were put in, he is officially 11 months old today!

We’ve determined that Eli has spoken his first word! His first word was “dada”. I am extremely happy that despite all of the pain he’s caused my wife (many, many sleepless nights), he decided that “dada” was the best first word he could think of.

We were on the fence for a little while about it actually being a word since “dada” sounds like so many things that baby’s naturally say. He’s been saying it non-stop lately so it’s official, he loves me more! I tried to get him to say mama but he wanted no part of that! He was persistent in wanting dada to be his first word. Who am I to stop him?

In other Eli news, Meri and I are taking him to his ear tube pre-op appointment this afternoon. His “surgery” is scheduled for Feb 10th.  From what I’ve read and been told, recovery time is about an hour after the procedure. We are both very excited about the possibility of him beginning to sleep through the night again. He did for a while, but then the ear aches/pains/infections started.

Over the last 5 or 6 months, the boys and I have had major ear issues! We spent approximately $700 on office visits and medicine during November 2007 alone, with health insurance!

I’m on either my fourth or fifth ear issue, either a lot of fluid on behind my ear drum or an infection. I’ve been to my ENT’s office so many times over the past few months that I might as well put in an application there! Aaron and Eli have been just as bad as me.

Eli is on his fourth double ear infection and Aaron has had three. I’m not sure if it’s some sort of environmental issue with either at our house or at my job or at their schools. I’m thinking that if it is environmental, then it has to be at our house somewhere.

It’s truly maddening. I haven’t suffered from ear-related issues since I was a little kid. I had to have tubes in my ears three or four times back then. Skip ahead 20+ years and here I am again.

I’m facing the possibility of having tubes put back in my ears. We aren’t sure what routes we should even consider with the boys. Eli is going to see his pediatrician today around 3pm and Aaron will have a similar visit (although we’re hopeful that the doc will just look him over today at Eli’s appointment).

The last few months have been horrendous though. I can’t wait until we can figure out what the issue is.

We’re leaving for our cruise to the Bahama’s this Thursday! It’s a short cruise, only four days and three nights but it will be very nice to get away. Meri’s parents are flying in Wednesday and they are going to watch Aaron and Eli while we are gone. It’s super nice that they are able to help us out like that because otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to go on the cruise.

In other family news, Eli has been sick all weekend. He woke up vomitting around 4:30 Saturday morning. He thew up six times in the following 90 minutes. We were going to take him to the ER around 9am or 10am if he continued vomitting but he stopped after the initial 90 minutes. Whenever we give him solid food, he’s thrown it up (we’ve only tried twice all weekend). He is holding down milk just fine so we’re sticking to that for a little while.

Aaron has started lying more and more lately. He has generally been lying about things that he will be embarrassed about – pooping or peeing on himself mostly, hurting Eli sometimes. We’re not sure how to deal with it, other than to continue the beatings (that’s a joke, seriously; NOTE: we do not beat our kids). We’ll need to do some more research but our initial thoughts are to reward the times when he does not have an accident, rather than make a big deal about the times that he does have an accident. This is something that I’ll have to work on more than Meri.

Update: we found Ginger about 10 minutes after I put out a bunch of signs around the neighborhood. She was two doors down from us. She apparently didn’t realize that she was at the wrong house! We brought her home, gave her a bath and took her to the vet the next day. She checked out ok and is now back at home!!

Ginger is missing. Ginger is our cat. This is the most recent picture we have of her.

Ginger

She’s been missing since Sunday. I noticed that I hadn’t heard her meowing at me to feed her or change her water. We adopted Ginger from the Jacksonville Humane Society when Meri and I were still dating.

Right now, we are developing some signs that we’re going to put out in the neighborhood. We are planning on offering up to a $100 reward to anybody who returns her to us.

To develop the signs, I’ve been following some guidelines put together by Missing Pet Partnership that I found on the web.

I’m fairly optimistic that either Ginger will come home or that she will be returned to us.

Aaron was talking about Ginger quite a bit tonight. He asked us where she was and we showed him the above picture and said “look, she’s in your room”. We aren’t ready to have this discussion with Aaron yet. He loves that cat so much, we all do! I keep describing Ginger as Aaron’s mobile pillow when he was learning to walk. He would lay on her and fall on her. He would pull at her fur and tug on her. Most cats would run away from him or get upset and hiss or claw but not Ginger, she was always very good about being gentle, especially with Aaron. We are all hoping for her quick return!

Aaron’s started VPK this year and we just got his first weekend project. His teacher traced his body and we were supposed to decorate it to look like Aaron. Here are some pictures.

Before:

After:

I’ve had a cold for five days now. Last night, after I got home from work, I had a “stuffy” right ear. No big deal, I thought, the pressure will just go away. I deal with the pressure in my ears when I fly and am accustomed to it just going away after a few days. I assumed the pressure in my ear now would do the same. So I woke up this morning, by myself in Aaron’s bed (don’t ask) and I noticed right away that the pressure in my right ear was in fact gone!  w00t!…? No. It moved to my left ear (where it is currently residing).

Meri asked me to go to a Centra Care last night, when the symptoms first appeared. I didn’t. Why? cuz I’m a guy and guys don’t go to doctors [generally speaking of course]. So I finally went this morning.

So what does all of this have to do with the title of the blog post? Patience…

Well, when I finally got home, Meri was visibly upset about something. Whatever could it be I wondered?? So I did what I (now) view as a dumb thing, and I …(wait for it)… asked her – woops.

So we start arguing about how I don’t listen and I should have gone last night and blah blah blah. In the middle of arguing, I say something along the lines of “I don’t need this right now, I’m sick” – wah wah wah. Long story short, childcare was the reason for the anger! My wife needed to dump her frustration and I was the moron that opened the door. No big deal, it happens all the time.

Still, you’re probably wondering what all of this has to do with the post title, right? Ok, here goes.

Well, right after I said “I don’t need this right now, I’m sick”, Aaron hops off of the couch, with his Gameboy in hand and he walks over to us. Aaron put his hand on mine we had a small heart-to-heart talk:

Aaron: Daddy, do you know what will heal you?

Daddy (me): What will Aaron?

Aaron: Jesus. Jesus will heal you and make you feel better. My teacher prayed for me and ask Jesus to heal the boo boo on my knee.

[Mommy and Daddy start laughing, stop arguing]

So there you have it, straight from my 4 year old son, Jesus heals!

Aaron had eye surgery on Thursday, July 10th. Meri and I were a total wreck that day. Aaron was brave, as he always is. I posted the key events of the day on plurk.com and on twitter (via ping.fm on my VZW BlackBerry). All of my updates, via plurk.com, several hours before the surgery, leaving the house, out of surgery and sleeping in the recovery room, finally getting to see him, bringing him home, and finally, later that night, Aaron’s running a mild fever. Also, on twitter, a person (mgrossfl – Marc Grossman) that I only knew via twitter, expressed his concern throughout the next few days (via summize.com).

We arrived at the the Arnold Palmer hospital around 8am and registered and finally went to the surgery center. We spoke to Aaron’s ophthalmologist, then met the anesthesiologist and finally all of the nurses that would be helping during the surgery. They were all extremely nice.

The surgery itself lasted about an hour and went well, by the book according to the surgeon. Aaron was in the recovery room, sleeping for about 90 minutes after the surgery, in which time Meri and I patiently waited in the waiting room until we could finally go back and see him. When we got to see him, he was eating an orange popsicle that the nurses gave him.

We now have to give him eye drops three times every day, for three to five days post surgery. His first drops didn’t go so smoothly and it took 45 minutes to apply them! We are doing much better with the drops now; we stop them tomorrow.

Aaron’s eyes are red on the outer left portion. Over the next 3 weeks, they will become more red, possibly enveloping the entire eye, then turn yellowish and finally back to a normal white.

Now that the surgery is over, I’m finding the most difficult thing to do is wait for 4 – 6 weeks to know of the surgery was successful. According to the paperwork we were given, 70% of those who had the surgery only required it to be performed once. 30% needed multiple surgeries. Of those 30%, 20% needed one to two more surgeries and the final 10% needed 3 or more surgeries.

Needless to say, Meri, Aaron and I are hopeful that Aaron will be in the 70% range.

Not to be lost in all of this is Eli! He’s our now 4month old chunky baby (17lbs as of this writing!) who had to be cared for during the procedure. Thankfully, Meri’s aunt Paline was able to come down and help us out! We were very fortunate that she was able to come down on such short notice (she flew in EARLY Thursday morning, around 1am.

I’m ready to stop talking about this now, it has been difficult for all of us. Ready for some cuteness in this post, here it is. Aren’t my boys just so handsome?!