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?!

Tomorrow is the day that Meri and I have been dreading since Aaron’s diagnosis back in December 2007. He’s having his eye surgery. I’m not going to list all of the potential negative effects of the surgery because he is going to come out great and the surgery is going to go strictly by the book. There aren’t any negative effects to worry about. My son is a champion, he will get through this, even with his mom and dad sitting idly by with teary eyes. My son is the best son a father could ask for, he makes me feel like I’ve never felt before. I love him more than I ever thought I could love another person.

Aaron’s intermittent exotropia I discussed previously has been getting progressively worse. Meri and I have both been noticing that he is squinting more and more, even when he’s not outside in full sun and even when he’s wearing sunglasses.  Meri and I have had a bad feeling about what we both [pessimistically] thought would need to happen next.

Meri took him to the ophthalmologist again yesterday to have him re-examined (since it’s been 6 months since he was first diagnosed) The doctor is one of the best in the area (from what we’ve been told).  Meri works in an ER and has spoken with several opthamalogists that stroll through there and they recommend him (and more importantly, use him).

The doctor looked at Aaron’s eyes and told Meri that his condition was deteriorating. He told her that the only solution for Aaron’s case was to have the corrective surgery.  We knew this day was coming and have talked about what we should do next.  We’ve done a lot of research and have both anguished about this decision for a long time – we decided that Aaron should finally have the surgery.

I can’t speak for Meri, but I am not fearful that the doctor won’t do a good job and I am fully expecting that the surgery will be successful.  We are both very worried about Aaron having to be sedated for the surgery. Meri working in the medical for so long is both a blessing and a curse in that she knows a lot about what to expect.  Knowledge can be power but it can also be crippling, especially in the case of surgery for one of your kids.  While the surgery is not exactly necessary (in my understanding anyway), if successful, it would greatly improve Aaron’s quality of life.

So the surgery is scheduled for just under two weeks away (July 10th).  We have a pre-op appointment 7 days before the surgery so that we can hear about all of the details. Meri spoke briefly about recovery time and the doctur said that it would only be a few hours for Aaron, but he couldn’t go to the pool or play with sand for a week after the surgery.

Today, my sleep-deprived wife made me a big breakfast when she woke up.  Aaron drew me a card and actually wrote several sentences in it!  It was one of the best cards I’ve ever received.  Meri got me a picture of my boys together and a picture of their hand prints. She also got me Metroid Prime 3 for our Wii.

I had an interview yesterday for a 6 month contract. I really liked the facility and the work environment seemed very clean and nice. The people I interviewed with were very nice. The only problem I have with it, is the length of the contract. My biggest worry is about not being extended. Both of the people I spoke with spoke long-term so that made me feel a bit better, I just can’t shake the worry though. I thought I’d make a list of pro’s and con’s of my current and prospective contracts.

Current company pros

• Relatively stable – current contract expires in Sept 2008 but there is an extension in the hands of the client’s legal department awaiting approval that would expire in Sept 2010.
• I am allowed to work from home one day a week.
• Pay is good, benefits are decent and fairly inexpensive

Current company cons

• I’m fucking miserable here!
• I’m writing code about 10% of the time, the other 90% is spent analyzing production data and modifying it since it’s been screwed up by the system – basically, I feel like I work on a help desk.
• Being on-call. I have a pager that I have to “man” once every 10 days (approximately speaking); every 5th weekend, I’m on-call and basically can’t leave my house.
• I now how 3 time sheets to fill out! One of them, the newest, easily takes about 30mins/day to fill out.
• I’m not learning anything new here since I’m barely writing any code.
• I have to commute 62 miles (round trip) and spend about 45 minutes on I4 (with smooth traffic, no accidents).

Contract position pros

• Major pay increase, 66% from my current hourly rate – dollar for dollar, not including how much my benefits cost. Meri would pick up the benefits from working part-time at her job.
• 20 mile round trip from my house to client site.
• I would be writing code again!
• No more on-call support (and therefore no more feeling like I work on a help desk).

Contract position cons

• Only a guaranteed 6 month contract. The company has a very strong history of extending their contractors and eventually offering them full-time positions, but that is not guaranteed. The only guarantee is that I’ll have a paycheck for 6 months.

If the client decided not to renew the contract at the end of the 6 month period, they would have to let me know 45 days prior to the end of contract and vice versa if I decided not to stay with them either. If the contract expired in 6 months and was not renewed, we would be able to live on the “extra” money that I made from the hourly increase for about 4 months after the contract was over. That would give me 4 months to either look for another job or find another contract. If I was unable to find another full-time position somewhere else in Orlando. Moving out of Orlando is not an option. If I did have to start working other contracts, then I would potentially have to travel a lot.

So basically, I’m not sure what to do. Any ideas?

Last night, Meri and I decided to buy a Nintendo Wii. We’ve been talking about it since it first came out (Nov 19, 2006) and I described to her how it was different than every other system out on the market. The Wii came with Wii Sports, a controller and a nunchuk.We bought Wii Play as well since it came with a second controller.

Last night, we played for almost two hours! One thing that I thought was really cool on the Wii was that a message is sent to you with a “total time played” when you are finished playing. The Wii Sports game is really fun! The boxing is physically demanding enough to make me sweat after only playing it for about 20 minutes or so.

I know that we are going to get Wii Fit whenever we can find it – it costs around $90. Other than that, I’m torn as to what other game I want to get next. I have a small list going – in no particular order.

• Mario Kart Wii – comes with a steering wheel
• We Ski
• Metroid Prime 3 – Corruption
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 (or 2009 or whatever)
• The Legend of Zelda – Twilight Princess

I was surprised to see that Meri actually had fun with it. She generally doesn’t like video games. I think Aaron will really like playing this system and we’ll all be able to have fun with this as a family.