a prized work of art

This is a picture my young friend Mlana drew for me, OF me, years ago before E was born. I don't remember how old she was; I didn't think to date the picture when I put it up on the kitchen cabinet. It's my favorite picture of myself.

while picking her nose...

"Mommy, my mucus and boogers are so green, I think they're inch-worms!"

psychologist's treat

Since her surgery, E has taken up with renewed vigor the pastime of pretending to be a baby. She always says, "Pretend you're the wedding mom and I'm your wedding baby." So, recently she takes it even further back, adding, "and pretend I'm still in your tummy." The other day she had me talking to the wedding baby in my tummy, etc., and she mentioned that the baby was never going to come out of my tummy! I expressed dismay that I would never get to see my baby and she solved that by pretending that I could see through my tummy and she could see out. Pretty much anything she wanted to play was possible as she instructed me to pretend I was swallowing different things to get them to her -- like swallowing a dress for her to wear and a cradle for her to sleep in. At one point the whole living room was my tummy.

This morning the game took a kind of delightful, weird new twist. She wanted me to tell her a story about the Scooby-Doo gang as a family and she was their baby. Freddy was the daddy, Daphne was the mommy, Velma was the sister, and Shaggy was the brother. And of course Scooby-Doo was the dog. She, the baby, was in Freddy's tummy! (When she once insisted that she was present at our wedding, I told her that, in a way, she was, in both of our tummies.)

Furthermore, when Freddy announced his pregnancy to the family she added that the doctor had given the baby in his tummy a check-up and pronounced that this baby would NEVER grow up. The baby was SO tiny, and the whole family took turns holding her and rocking her and proclaiming their love for her.

hmmm... a form of emotional growing pains?

funny

As E and I were debriefing the fit she had in the grocery store, it came to light that she had been trying to tell me a certain way she wanted to get out from under the grocery cart - as I dragged her out! She said, "Maybe next time you could wear your ear aids, like Grandpa, your dad."

She already knows not to trust my memory. Now she thinks I can't hear. *sigh*

By the way, the follow up appointment with the ENT resulted in the all-clear to eat "scratchy" foods and resume normal activities. She's healed. And she no longer should need the yummy Tylenol she's been asking for several times a day.

example of E's changed voice

This high pitched voice may change again after she fully heals, but her voice is probably going to be different than it was due to all the new space in her windpipe!

It was hard to get a video of her voice in the days before surgery, she really was against it. You all might not notice the change too much. Sometimes it's more noticeable than others. It seems most noticeable to me when I pick her up from school, so I brought the camera with me on Wednesday and held it pointing behind me while I drove.

what you learn on the ride home

E is talkative on the ride home from preschool lately, and I learn what she's been learning that day. One day it was, "This is how kindergarteners count: 2, 4, 3, 9, 12, 10, ..." (or some other random string of numbers - she has said this several times and the sequence is never the same) The teacher said she had been trying to teach the kids to count by 2's and they got confused so she just said, "You'll learn how to count like this in kindergarten."

Yesterday, it was the pronouncement that "Enemies are people who don't get along with each other." I said I didn't think I have any enemies, and I asked if she does. She thought for a minute and said she didn't like B__ because he's a boy. She didn't like any of those boys, actually. Finally she said, "I'm a enemy to boys."

quiet house

E was lazy and tired pretty much all day, but wound herself up somehow around dark and didn't fall asleep til after 10 pm. She spent at least 2 hours in her bed arranging quilts, paging through books, and watching the neighbor's dog out of her window. She asked for ice cream and I gave her ice, and a frozen waffle.

She hasn't talked about it much, but I wonder if she's excited about the Easter Bunny coming tomorrow. All Easters before this, that she can remember, were spent with Victor and Marie, I think. Marie and I both have been pretty stressed and didn't manage to make any plans this time. I agreed to keep the church nursery tomorrow all morning, so that another person could travel to visit her son on Easter.

Her breathing is already so quiet I have to go stand over her to hear it! Believe me, that's a big change.

pictures from yesterday

NOTE: this commentary was added Saturday, not Friday when the pictures were posted.

We arrived at the surgical center a little before 7 am. E wore one of her prettiest twirling dresses. She was offended by the "special hospital pajamas" that she had been looking forward to. They had tigers on them and the words "Tired Little Tiger". She said she didn't like tigers and didn't want to wear them. Then she didn't want her picture taken in them, but David managed it.


I teased her about wearing washcloths on her feet and she let me put them on.


This is her when we first saw her after the surgery. There's an ice pack around her neck.


They put the IV's in the kids after they're asleep from the "special sleep gas" that they managed somehow to scent like "Easter chocolate". E said it smelled good. She didn't realize this IV had a needle in it, was surprised to see some blood after the nurse took it out.


At first E said she never went to sleep, but this weekend it sank in that she must have, since her tonsils are clearly gone and she doesn't remember them taking them out.

She did great that first day. We got home about 3:00, watched movies, ate treats. She ate an entire packet of Ramen noodles for dinner (cooked in chicken broth, without the powder that comes with them). She was hungry a lot yesterday too. Today, not so much. Water tasted salty to her up until today I think, and she still doesn't like juice much, so it was hard to get her to drink. The dr said her taste will be off for a couple of weeks.