Isaac's Surgery

Isaac's surgery went well today.  He has had an umbilical hernia since birth, but his doctor said that as long as kids aren't in pain or having problems they usually wait until they are at least five to fix  them because they will often correct themselves before that age.  After five it is rare that they will heal on their own.  A couple of months ago I took him in for a regular checkup, and it was decided to that he needed to see a specialist to have it fixed.  After meeting the specialist I decided to wait until summer break so that he wouldn't have to miss any school.  Which leads us to today.

Isaac was a little nervous when he realized the surgery was coming up.  He even said he didn't want to do it, very  adamantly.  After I sat down with him and explained exactly what was going to happen and why we were doing it, he had a much better attitude about it.  Last night he even wanted to set his alarm to make sure he got up in time this morning.

While Isaac was waiting to be taken back, they let me stay with him.  He got to pick what scent to put in his gas mask (a combo of cherry coke, cotton candy, and sprite) and play on an ipad.  He was so mesmerized by the ipad he wasn't even concerned when he had to say bye to me.  The child specialist said that the special grip on it allowed her to hold it up so they could continue playing it until they are fully under.  She said it was kind of funny sometimes, because they are so groggy they are just waving their hands in the air.

The procedure itself went very quickly.  Less than a half hour.  It took him longer to wake up afterwards than the actual surgery.  He was not very happy when he woke up either, because he was in quite a bit of pain.  The recovery nurse gave him an extra dose of pain medication and that helped to get him a little more comfortable so I could get him home.  For the rest of the day I've been alternating pain meds so that he can tolerate the pain, and he even took a little nap this afternoon.  

Here are the before and after pics.  Don't worry the after isn't that yucky.  It was a very small incision which they stitched with dissolvable stitches on the inside and then glued together on the outside to protect it.  Pretty neat, since there is no bandage to change or stitches to remove.  

BEFORE

AFTER

 

I think the hardest part for him will be no swimming for a week and no strenuous activities such as wrestling with brothers for two.

Last Day of School 2013

Nathan had his last day of school on Thursday and Isaac and Rebekah had theirs on Friday.  Nathan was super excited, because this means no more preschool and next year he gets to go to school with the "big kids".  

 Isaac got several awards including 100% in PE for all four quarters, 100% in math for the 3rd quarter (Ms. Mineck said that she was impressed because this was a hard one since they introduced multiplication this quarter), 100% in history 1st & 2nd quarter, 100% phonogram club (They had to get 100% by the end of the year on all 70 phonograms.  Isaac got his early on and would bring me wonderful doodles that he got to do while everyone else was taking their tests.), a certificate for reading the assigned 25 books for the year, and both he and Rebekah got certificates, because they had creative writings that were selected for the school's creative writing book.  Each teacher got to submit writing from two students from each quarter, and these were compiled into a book for the school.  As a reward they each got a certificate and a copy of the booklet.

Rebekah did so well this year.  She struggled a little bit towards the end, but I think it was mainly just running out of steam, however this is the first year she did not have to go to tutoring!  Yeah!  She was one of the best readers in her class and received an award for being a super reader.  She read well over the required 500 pages with close to 2 thousand.  (She seems to have inherited the love of reading from her mother.)  She also got an award for always being willing to help out in class, along with the certificate for being in the school's creative writing collection.

  They both loved their teachers this year.  Rebekah loved having Ms. Ray and Isaac had a great time with Ms. Mineck.  (Both kids had her and she retired this year.)

Ms. Mineck does a very funny thing at the end of the year.  She likes to guess what her first graders are going to be when they grow up.  Can you guess what she said about Isaac?




Isaac 1st grade from Shannon on Vimeo.

 In case you can't read it Isaac's says: Water: Water can be anywhere.  It is good for your body.  Water can be gross or good.  You can drink water too. In a pool you can swim in water.  All plants and animals need water.  (You can definitely tell a boy wrote this, he worked the word gross in there.)

 Rebekah's says: The Flying Music: Do you hear the music?  Do you see their flapping wings?  Oh, beautiful birds!

Water Day at Nathan's Preschool

 

Rebekah's Piano Recital May 2013

T-Ball Spring 2013

The boys had a lot of fun playing their first year of T-ball.  It was a just for fun rec league so no scoring, but they had a lot of fun and their coach taught them some really good fundamentals.  Isaac was really good with his participation, but Nathan struggled a little with the practices.  After the first couple of practices he kept insisting that he wanted to play "real baseball".  He didn't quite understand, even after we explained it to him, that you have to start out somewhere before you can get to the real thing. =)  He is very much a doer.  He just wants to be thrown into it and figure it out that way.  Isaac is a lot more methodical in his approach to things, and it is so fun to watch them learn things with such different learning styles.

(For clarification Nathan is in tan shorts and Isaac is in plaid.  Sometimes it is hard to tell them apart especially when they have hats on.)

Christmas Concert 2012

The kids Christmas Concert was last week.  Isaac performed for the first time, as kindergartners do not participate, and Rebekah for the second year in a row performed in the school choir.

Isaac is hard to see in his video, because he is in the middle of the crowd.  He is wearing a white shirt though and sometimes you can see him still sticking up for half a second when everyone is going down.  He is on the third row from the bottom and about 6 or 7th in from the edge.

Here is Rebekah singing with the school choir.  I was so sad Cassie was misbehaving by the time Rebekah sang with the fourth grade class so I didn't get to record that one.  It was really good and you could hear Rebekah, because she was right in front of the microphone.

Halloween 2012

I couldn't leave out the awesome Halloween costumes Dwayne made for the kids this year.  Each of the cars had a candy spot.  Cassie's was just a tube, but the rest all had levers to open up their hoods.  We got quite a few comments on how cool they were.  Rebekah especially loved to surprise people when she went up to their doors.  She would say trick or treat and when the people would ask her where they should put the candy she'd pop the hood open and say, "Here!"  We let each of the kids pick out what type of car they wanted to be.  Rebekah chose a pink Barbie car, Isaac chose a police car, Nathan a blue truck, and Cassie we chose a purple (her favorite color) VW bug since she didn't really care.

 

 

Rebekah's Piano Recital May 2012

Well I'm not sure what I'm going to do it's been so long since I posted last.  I'm not sure whether to just start up where we are now or try and back track.  Something is better than nothing though so here is Rebekah's latest piano recital.  I was there by myself with all the kids so I was trying to deal with them while filming it.  The first song is "Pop Goes the Weasel" and the second one is "The Wild Colt".