On Saturday we took the children to see some sort of traveling Disney show. Most of the usual suspects were featured, including Little Einsteins (my fav) and Handy Manny. Here are some pics.
It was a killer weekend with all my school assignments! There was a lot of reading and writing to do. Fortunately, this is what I'm best at. But I have other important responsibilities, too. I'm shooting for all As, and so, therefore, I might be overdoing it to make the best impression. Couple those two things and it made for a lot of hours put into my school work.
I don't remember much having a lot of homework the first time around (Michael would joke right about here that it's because I attended Southern schools!). Of course I had outside work. But seriously at least in those last years it seemed like I was the type who largely studied for exams the weekend before the final. Maybe it was more the nature of the courses I had left there in the end. Who knows — it's been a long time ago. My memory fails me. Of course, I didn't make all As back then, either! It's looking like this coming week might not be quite so hectic. Despite the long hours, I'm really enjoying learning.
At least I'm setting a good example for Anna and Alexander when the time comes for them to have homework!
Anna and Alexander are no longer the newest additions to our extended family, as a new baby girl cousin has been born into this world. My brother Donny, my sister-in-law Tiffany and their little boy Peyton welcomed Jordan Blake on Friday afternoon. (I'm not sure how they're planning to spell this.) She was due on the 21st, but I predicted her birthday would be 0123!
Check out all her blond hair! Donny said I could post one of the baby, but I figured I'd also throw one in of their whole family so that all our aunts and uncles and cousins who are scattered about the South can see what a cute family of four they make. I hope Tiffany doesn't mind me posting a photo of her, but doesn't she look great?
This newest addition now brings the total of cousins, (including Anna and Alexander) to seven on my side of the family and four on Michael's side. For about 12 years my mom and dad had only one grandchild, my oldest niece Jayde (my sister Kim's daughter). Then in the past 4.5 years there has been an explosion of children. My brother is in North Carolina and sister is in Mississippi. I hate how we're all so far apart and the cousins can't get to know each other that well like it was when we were young. Michael's family is in Michigan.
There is no more snow on the ground, not after about five 50ish-degree days. Shoot, today might have been closer to 60 degrees. No, these photos were snapped a couple of weeks ago. I'm just posting them now, well, because I had intended to anyway and because I haven't downloaded any more recent photos from our camera.
Alexander has had no complications whatsoever following his surgery last week. He still does sound kind of nasally, however, so we'll see what the doctor says about that when we take him for a follow-up next week. Maybe he's still in the healing process up there where his adenoids were.
In other news, I have returned to college! I really enjoyed the college experience and remember missing that sort of academic atmosphere after I FINALLY graduated the first time around. That was back in 1994 — a full nine years after I graduated from high school. But I have a good excuse. Sort of. It took me so long because I had a full-time job in my chosen career of journalism. Earning my degree the first time around quickly became sort of secondary.
But now it's different. Now I'm in a hurry to earn my elementary teaching degree. So I have signed myself up for four classes this semester. Three of them are online. One is face-to-face. So far it's very interesting and very time consuming. I've been in school for less than a week and already have had several 2 a.m. nights. My goal is to find a rhythm and devote my 3 free hours in the mornings (when the children are in school) to my own studies. Though at first blush one might think online classes will be easier, I'm pretty sure that is not the case! The opposite may be true. In one of my classes I have to read more than 30 novels (plus the regular textbook, of course) AND do some sort of novel study project with a middle school class. Wish me luck.
Alexander's adenoids were removed yesterday. It was his second surgery (and second with anesthesia) in a couple of years. Almost exactly two years ago he was circumcised.
We have always thought Alexander had a stopped-up, nasally sound and finally took him to a specialist. (His pediatrician didn't seem to notice it or think much of it.)
The doctor did a CT scan of his sinus area. Alexander sat so still for this that the doc said they were the best pictures of a 3-year-old he'd ever gotten! He said Alexander had "massively enlarged adenoids" which should be removed. Alexander was doing a lot of mouth-breathing and almost always was waking up at least once a night crying (though he usually goes right back to sleep easily). Apparently this could lead to not only sleep problems but also language delays if his ears get backed-up and he can't hear well. A lot of kids with enlarged adenoids are constantly sick with yucky noses. Thankfully Alexander did not always seem to be sick, but now I'm sure this probably did contribute to his recent bout with pink eye since the doctor said that likely developed from his discolored mucousy nose which hung around far too long.
Anyway, all went very well yesterday. We had to get the kids up early since we had to be there by 6 a.m. We were home by about 11:30 a.m. Before the surgery, we sat in a private and very comfortable "holding area" where they gave Alexander some kind of prep medication that made him super relaxed and totally loopy. Then he got to ride to his surgery in a wagon. Anna and Alexander both brought their big Dora and Diego dolls, and the nurses gave both kids and their dolls blue surgical hats.
When it was over, we sat in the pediatric post-op room with Alexander for an hour or so. He was very teary for a bit, but a couple of popsicles and juice seemed to help lift his spirits. He's such a sweet little boy. Even all sick and doped-up he said please when he asked for his juice. Awwww. And listen to this, also: At home he'd woken up from his nap to see just a small and perfectly normal amount of blood on his sheets. I found him in the bathroom where he was getting baby-wipes in an attempt to clean his sheets.
The doctor said Alexander's adenoids turned out to be so large that they had started to grow or push into his nose! He described them as "quite impressive". The CT scan had also revealed that Alexander had a concha bullosa, which is an enlarged turbinate (the turbinate being a normal part of the sinus structure). This was causing or definitely could cause nasal obstruction in the future so the doctor shaved that down, for lack of a better expression.
Once home Alexander took a long nap and we kept his play non-physical. We also kept him home from school today just to make sure we didn't risk him running into a wall (remember his feet issues, coupled with possible medication-related balance concerns) or otherwise falling down or being knocked by someone or something.
Here is a little video clip and photos of us in the pre-op area, post-op room and a couple of Anna and Michael passing the waiting time. Check out how Alexander mustered a little wave to Michael toward the end of the video!
This morning we celebrated Alexander's half-year birthday at his school. The school observes all of its students' birthdays, and those with summer birthdays get to celebrate mid year.
The child holds a globe of the planet Earth and walks around a picture of the sun once for each year of his or her life. During each circle around, the mom and dad tell a couple of milestones he hit during that year. Then after his friends and teachers sing the birthday song he sits on our laps and the parents read some of his favorite things. They'd sent home a "birthday sheet" for us to fill in and to which we also affixed Alexander's baby photo, a family photo and one of our favorite photos of him.
Alexander said his fav foods are spaghetti and meatballs and oranges; his fav colors are blue, purple and black; his favorite things to do are ride his bicycle and play basketball and to play with his cars; and he wants to be a baseball player and Batman when he grows up. I'm not at all sure where he got Batman from since he's never seen Batman or received any Batman paraphernalia. Spiderman he knows. Must've learned about Batman at school, I suppose.
Then I read to the class one of Alexander's favorite books. As you might imagine why, I gave him shorter books from which to choose. He settled on one of those easy-reader Scholastic Books about Hot Wheels called "Racing U.S.A." It was in his stocking/pillowcase for Christmas, so it's kind of a new favorite anyway.
We left little prepackaged Nemo fruit-flavored gummy treats which were given to all his classmates to take home in their backpacks, and we also gave a little donation in Alexander's name. The school really discourages cupcakes, cake and fruit roll-ups since they're such a mess. And they don't carve out time enough for real cake-cutting and such anyway. These kids have to get to work learning!
He's 3.5 years old, by the way. Here are a few pics and a video clip.
We took the children on their first ice skating adventure the Saturday after Christmas. Turns out being born in Russia does not mean you're a natural ice skater. Who knew!
The kids did love it, though. And with each passing minute they just kept getting better.
For all his out-toeing and funny-looking running, Alexander is more coordinated and athletic than his sister. I'd mentioned before that he's been in physical therapy twice a week since November for what his PT diagnosed as tightness in the lower legs. He's made great strides there, but she does think that part of his issues could be due to his structure (or bones!). So, with her notes and suggestions (as opposed to our pediatrician's), we were finally able to get an appointment with the pediatric orthopedist here. You may remember I tried, and failed, to get in to see him back in August or September. Even a call from our pediatrician did not work. Anyway, we see the orthopedic specialist tomorrow. I'm sure he'll take X-rays.
Here are ice-skating pics. The little girl in the yellow coat was so sweet to offer to help Alexander stay upright during the family's first lap around the rink. He's always making little girlfriends like that!
My friend Quyen "tagged" me. I've never done this before, so here goes. I was supposed to look in iPhoto, in the fourth folder where we keep photos and choose the fourth photo, post it and describe what's going on.
We have more than 11,000 photos in iPhoto! Yikes. Needless to say, some time ago, we stopped organizing them into folders by theme or dates. iPhoto now automatically groups them together for us whenever we import them. But of the folders we had created, the fourth one down included photos from our summer 2004 trip back to Chicago when Mikel played in the U.S. Open Table Tennis Tournament.
At that time we'd already been gone from the Chicago area for more than a year and were living in upstate New York. So it was a nice visit back to the beautiful city and area where we'd lived for five years and were married.
