Joel

Joel is up early - just about every morning.  But sometimes when he does sleep in we wake him up at 6:30.  After Christmas he asked to be woken up at 6 because he likes having time to fully wake up before he heads to the bus stop. I understand that so the days we do have to wake him up we have been making sure its by 6

The other day I hit snooze one to many times and didn't wake Joel up until 6:15 - he didn't get out of bed until 6:20..... excuse me 6:22.

Immediately his life was over.  He was going to miss the bus.  Breakfast was yucky. Why didn't I wake him up earlier.  Never mind his clothes were already sitting out just needing to be put on or that breakfast was already made.  Yelling and crying on the couch how he was going to be late for the bus.  I assured him he wasn't going to be late.

We were 5 minutes early for the bus stop.

He refused to stand near me.

Or look at me.

We are the only ones at the bus stop in the mornings.

He kept telling me I could leave "you may please go now"

At least he was polite this time.

I stayed

And then when he got on the bus I started to wave and smile like a crazy person "BYEEEE have a GREAT day!!!" Until the bus was all the way down the street.

I can be just as stubborn as him

One night Colin and Norah were in one room play and Joel was in the office doing home work. I'm not sure what happened but Norah fell and started crying. Colin ran to her and made sure she was ok.  "oh Norah are you ok? can I help you?"  He was being so sweet.

All Joel heard was Norah crying and Colin coming to her rescue.  All of a sudden I hear Joel yell "COLIN STOP ENCOURAGING NORAH TO GET HURT!"

Maybe that explains the lack of sympathy Joel shows his sister sometimes

Surgery

I went to dentist December 22 for a routine cleaning and she was concerned with this spot on my tongue that I had never noticed before. She did the oral screening and then gave me a slip of paper and told me to immediately make an appointment with that oral surgeon for a tongue biopsy. That's not terrifying at all!

I told myself I wouldn't google it... and that lasted maybe a day or two.  Lets just say I should never have googled it at all.

I went January 2nd and he immediately scheduled me for surgery January 8. And I googled it some more.  Again not a good idea.

Well even with all my googling I was completely not prepared for the after effects.  I didn't realize that even soft foods I couldn't get down because my tongue was so swollen and bruised. I also didn't expect not to be able to talk at all. And then when I could talk a little I would sound so disabled.  I physically couldn't get certain sounds out. I spent several days unable to get out of bed. That was during the snow days.  I couldn't talk to the kids so Ant Ant called and facetimed them and yelled at them once when they weren't listening at all. I was very glad when they went back to school. My surgery was on a Monday - they went back to school on a Thursday. Then they were out the following week for another two days for snow.  Its been a long month!

Norah even forbade me to talk to anyone when I dropped her off at school.  "Mommy just smile ok. Don't show your tongue. Just smile and nod your head" hahahaha One day a teacher came up me and told me that she had laughed when she asked Norah if she liked all the snow. Norah had replied to her "it was fabulous!" Norah had a panicked look on her face when she thought I would have to actually talk to that teacher. But the teacher left quickly to take another student somewhere so I got away with just smiling that time. Norah has been both fascinated and disgusted with my tongue and constantly asks me to show her my tongue.

I started growing what Jeff called a tail on the side of my tongue.  The surgeon wasn't going to take the stitches out since they were dissolvable but because of how I was healing he took the stitches out Monday.  Taking the stitches out was very painful. When he was done he wrapped my bloody tongue in gauze, patted my head, called me a trooper and then said he would have to cut off that tail!  I teared up thinking he was going to do it right then but he said he wanted to wait three months to see how I heal.   I'm hoping it heals. But after he took the stitches out a lot of the pain I was feeling was gone.

This morning I woke up and felt so much better. And then I ate a sandwich for lunch. Its funny what you dream of eating after eating chicken broth and applesauce for weeks.  All I wanted was to be able to eat a sandwich. You don't realize how much work your tongue does in eating and swallowing until you don't have it.

The biopsy came back benign - all clear. They don't know why that spot appeared or if it will come back. We are praying its a one and done thing.   On the plus side I have lost over 5lbs already so this forced diet after all the Christmas cookies has been one good thing of all this.  I also haven't heard Brent laugh so hard as he filmed me coming out of the anesthesia.  He fully enjoyed every minute of that.

Snow!

The kids started off the year going to school 1.5 days and then were out for 5 school days for snow.  They got out early one day because of the coming snow so we waited all afternoon for the snow to start. It started snowing around bedtime and Joel and Norah went to bed very excited. They were predicting 6-12 inches I think. We got I think 12 inches but it was hard to tell because some areas had less and some areas had 3 feet drifts. Tons of snow to play in!   Colin likes to stay up later reading until we are done putting Joel and Norah to bed.  I went upstairs to talk to Colin before it was time for him to go to bed and we heard laughing and screaming outside.  We looked out his window and kids were outside playing in the snow.  He and I quickly got our snow clothes on and we went outside to play with everyone.  It was Miss Beverly (Norah's teacher) and her three girls and then the kids went to go get the triplets out.  The snow was coming down fast and we got a few inches in the time we were outside.  Colin and I didn't come inside until close to midnight.  There is something magical about being outside at night with the snow falling.  I remember my dad talking us for a walks in the night snow.

Joel found out that he was put to bed and therefore didn't get to play in the snow like Colin did. And missed all the fun.  That has gone over as well as you can imagine....

Joel was up at 5am yelling and running through the house "IT SNOWED!!!!" so we were all up early that next morning.

Norah LOVED the snow! She was out the door at 8am and only came inside to eat lunch then went right back outside until it got dark again and everyone went inside.  She couldn't get enough of it. For days and days she played outside from morning to night.

Colin and some boys built two forts in our front yard so for the second year in a row we had a capture the flag game in the snow.  You get hit with a snow ball you are out.  The kids love it and I hope we can continue this annual tradition.  The neighborhood also attempted several huge snowball fights but I'm not sure much snowball fighting happened. It would circulate around "snowball fight at 3." They would all go out and it would be a line of boys vs a line of girls and then there were be the rules and more rules and discussions on team names.  And who was on the teams because some of the sisters would either be a traitor to their brothers or the girls depending on whose side they ended up on.  It was entertaining to watch as a parent.   The kids had so much fun playing outside in the snow.  We even had a game night at a neighbors house since we were all home and not going anywhere. That was so much fun we hope to do monthly game nights with everyone.  We were sad when the snow all melted away.

 

Christmas Day

Christmas started early for us.  Joel was awake super early and kept asking if Santa had come yet. An then he kept asking if Lenny would bark when Santas reindeer were on the roof. So he kept trying to listen.  I have no idea what time it was - but I'm guessing before 5am.  The room we sleep in has a queen bed and then we put the kids on air mattresses.  So I went down and slept with Joel a little longer until we heard people walking around upstairs.  

 

 

 

It was a great day!