Cross Country

I love Jack's elementary school. They have such fun programs. During the fall, the kids can participate in cross country. They practice on Tuesday and Thursday after school. At the end of the season, they have a track meet against another elementary school (each grade races separately). They have one more huge track meet at the high school against all of the schools in the district. I only had my camera at the first meet. Here is a play by play.

The starting line up

half way around the course

Sprinting towards the finish line (love the grasping of heart)

A happy finisher! (They get cookies)

In reality, Jack finishes right in the middle of the group. In Jack's estimation, he is pretty close to winning. "Probably 4th or 6th". I love Jack - he is such a positive kid, and he gives everything he has to everything he does.

Jack is also taking piano lessons right now, and is pretty good. He loves it, so that helps a lot. We have a great teacher that comes to our house which helps me out a lot. He is also loving scouts and is busy every night with homework. He is always interested in adding activities, but I am hesitant to overload him. Right now he wants to take a martial arts class. We'll see what is next for Jack!

Sam's Surgery

After Sam's scary penicillin allergy our doc sent us to see an Ear Nose Throat doctor. He checked out both Jack and Sam. While Jack's tonsils were on the larger size, Sam's were gigantic and causing him to mouth breath, so we scheduled him for a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy on Oct 14th.

The kids had the funniest reactions. Jack was very jealous that Sam got to have surgery and he didn't, and Sam was excited to go to the "blue hospital" where he was "borned". When we got to the hospital, Sam was darling. He was all grins and enjoyed having mom all to himself. He was polite and quiet and practiced using the mask on himself and his dragon named "drag-o". All the nurses gathered for his enactment of how he would fall asleep after he got the gas. When they gave him the meds to relax him, he was absolutely hysterical. He got all glazed and was amazed by my hair. He decided that his surgery doll was a Super Dentist that was saving the world. More nurses gathered to enjoy the fun. He went right back and had no problems breathing in the mask. He really wanted to blow up the purple balloon for the doc.

Surgery went great, and he was very calm in recovery. He ate his applesauce, and drank some juice and they sent us home with the normal warnings.
And then the fun begins... Carrying him into the house from the car, he tells me that he feels like he is going to throw up. I put him on the counter in the bathroom and run to get a bowl. I come back and he is a black puddle of blood. Scary. I lay him down, and give him his meds. He throws up another bowl full of red blood. After several repeats, I call the doctor. I try to explain the amount of blood, and that his nose is bleeding and wont stop. We try everything he says and it continues, so he tells us to go to the ER. Luckily I handed Sam a barf bag, because he threw up two more times on the way and in the lobby. He was pale, and tired, and miserable. They gave him some anti-nausea meds and and IV full of fluids. He stopped throwing up, and the clots were able to form on his adenoids. If he would have bled one more time, he would have had to go back to surgery for more cauterization. They moved us to peds and we got to sleep overnight. Sam was very very mad about that. I had told him he didn't have to sleep overnight at the hospital. I lied, and I learned a lesson about not promising things that I cannot control. He is doing fine now. Still pretty drained and whiny! They said his voice would change, but now he sounds like Mickey Mouse. I wonder if it will change back.

I handled this all surprisingly well, because this is just the way things have been going for me lately. If you are close to me and start to have bad luck, sorry it is probably just me.