We've had a week just
packed with fun memory making.
Medals were won. (Jake actually won his S.T.A.R. Puppy rating several weeks ago but it seemed so much more
official once we had a shiny gold medal to
hang around Jake's neck hang from Noah's I.V. pole so he can admire it daily! It joins Noah's beloved NYC Marathon medal in blinging up the pole!)
The children had a wildly successful lemonade stand. Mary Faith and Noah added the essential traffic-drawing element of super cuteness. Oh, and yes, she does wear those sparkly purple boots every single chance she gets!
I took my band of crazy critters to see the crazy critters at the Greenville Zoo. Here Mary Faith demonstrates that while we may call her our little monkey, she's really no match for a chimpanzee!
Noah found the monkey business wildly amusing. I think Teddy looks amused as well.
Look how brave the little dears were. When this bear attacked Mary Faith, her siblings Sarah, David, and Timothy promptly came to the rescue. Noah was even willing to pry the beast's mouth open with his bare hands! Somehow the intrepid Miss Mary Faith managed to maintain her smile through the entire ordeal. :-)
Noah thought it was absolutely fantastic that Jake was being rewarded with alligator meat treats while viewing the alligator exhibit. Jake might be small and fluffy, but he was snacking on apex predators while the zoo gators could only gaze longingly at the pup on the other side of the glass. In other "Jake at the zoo" news, it turns out that the zoo has a policy that folks with service dogs get escorted by a zookeeper. This is in case any of the animals get agitated by the sight of the service animal. (None did, but a few licked their chops more than strictly necessary.) He offered to stay back and "be invisible" or to function as our own private tour guide ready to relay trivia and answer questions. Every homeschooling mom reading this knows exactly which option we chose!!! We learned more about the zoo and its animals in this visit than in all other visits combined!! Sarah was pretty much over the moon at getting to talk shop with a zookeeper all morning.
After a quick refueling at Cici's Pizza (where Jake held a down-stay through our whole meal!!!), we headed to Build A Bear. Part of the process is having the child select a heart for the "heart ceremony" where the child wishes the heart that is then placed in the bear. When the attendant found out that Noah was having surgery the next week, she said that we ALL needed to choose a heart and a wish for Noah so that his bear would be full of
lots of extra love. The ever-faithful Jake refused to break his sit-stay to touch the heart but we finally convinced him to give it a
lick kiss. He never did tell us what he wished for but I suspect it had to do with alligator jerky.
Noah rubbing the bears heart on his head so his bear would be smart just like him. I always love the little steps they do during the heart ceremony!! Note the light saber and "Dark Vader" outfit in Noah's lap - he had looked soooooo forward to getting a "Dark Vader" bear!!
Noah proudly displaying his completed bear. Yes, that is a Spiderman bear that was promptly dressed in a "Dark Vader" outfit complete with light saber. We had the eternal conflict between good and evil all packaged in one cuddly teddy bear. I have no idea whether this is a good guy bear or a bad guy bear but I do know he's got a lot of heart(s).
Mary Faith spent quite a bit of time agonizing over just which heart to select for her pony.
She took her wish-making duties very seriously indeed!!
I think she was very pleased with her finished Twilight Sparkle, don't you?
Noah's very good friend Judah made our fun day even more fun by joining us for our zoo/pizza/Build A Bear adventures!!
We've had lots of fun this week with arts and crafts. We made homemade glitter play-dough and glitter squishy bags, both in every color of the rainbow. Lots of intense play-dough playing inevitably led to plenty of mixed colors, so we made brown out of the mixy scraps. In a flash of inspiration, I told Noah and Mary Faith to make brown volcanoes while I mixed up some "magic lava paint" out of baking soda, water, and red food coloring. As you can see in this picture, Noah may have been doubting the magic just a wee bit . . .
. . . until I gave him a spray bottle of vinegar and told him to spray his volcano!!! I just love this look of open-mouthed astonishment as his magic lava started to
erupt!!!!
Sadly, time really does fly when you are having fun and now I find that Thursday evening has come far sooner than I wanted. As I looked at these pictures taken this week I just wanted to be able to freeze time or even just slow it, but I can't.
Tomorrow we leave bright and early for Columbia so that Noah can have his surgery. Surgery for Noah has almost always been the fix to a crisis of some kind and as such it's often viewed as a good thing - a sure fire solution to a problem. It's scary and heartbreaking but so obviously necessary to resolving whatever problem is jeopardizing our boy's well-being. This time it's just so different. No one knows if this is going to do any good at all. The thought of signing the consent tomorrow makes me weepy. I am so very afraid that this won't work. One one hand my mind knows that we have to give this a chance. My heart has yet to catch up with my mind and I don't know how I'll manage if I give consent for this and it doesn't work. Seeing Noah suffer in order to get better is agonizing. Seeing him suffer and then not have it do any good is simply unfathomable. I am clinging desperately to the knowledge that we asked the Lord to direct the surgeon's decision-making and that the Lord's plans for Noah are for good.
Adding to the lump in my throat is the fact that the nurse manager from pre-op called me tonight and informed me that I would not be permitted to go into the O.R. with Noah. She tried her absolute level best to arrange for an anesthesiologist who would understand Noah's extraordinary situation (general anesthesia at least once every four weeks) and be willing to flex a bit, but she said that all of the anesthesiologists working tomorrow are very strictly "by the books" types who don't believe there is a place for a mama in the O.R. while her baby goes to sleep. Since Noah can't have any kind of calming or sedating pre-medications, the ability to hold Mommy's hand is the one thing that gives him courage and keep him calm while being put under. Please pray that both wisdom
and compassion will win the day and that if the anesthesiologist won't yield to Jeff's and my appeals, that the Lord will be very, very present to Noah and keep him from fear.
I don't know what kind of line our surgeon may have located and I don't know if he'll be able to use either jugular for access. If he can't, I don't know where he'll put the line.
I will update FB and will try to update here. His surgery is scheduled for 1 PM. If all goes well, we'll just spend one night in Columbia. I'd imagine Noah would enjoy some friendly faces if anyone would like to visit tomorrow evening or Saturday but text or message me first just to be sure. I know I'll be ready for a hug at any point!!!
Blessings,
Kate
