Surgery September

I thought we were in for an idyllic September waiting for Patrick's clavicle to heal itself, but it turns out we were in for two boy surgeries that we didn't expect. At least we still got to go to the Laver Cup in San Francisco!

Juliet and Stella continued their love fest this month. We have chairs all over the place but this is the way 6 year old girls like to watch shows.

Juliet lost her third tooth and finally allowed me to tie some floss to it to remove it this time! She was nervous but so proud.

I'm obsessed with the new smile. She looks like the most adorable little boxer or street fighter now.

We had a game afternoon over at the Odegaards' house and played Camel Up. Nothing like some camel racing bets for a delightful afternoon!

Patrick and Juliet have been such a good duo lately. 

Sometimes Meg is so desperate for cuddles she'll lay on top of a dog in order to get them.

Bradley came up to hang out by me while I was reading one afternoon and was toast after a blanket and kitty cuddles.

Sookie is really needy these days. I love it. Except when it's a half hour before my alarm is supposed to go off. She'll walk up to me and squawk in my face until I pet her.

Eleanor graduated up to the more advanced climbing club so Juliet and I went and climbed together during her final class in the intro climbing class. The advanced class runs later at night so this was much nicer for a 6 year old bedtime.

Juliet did great! She has started making this face for pictures though. Darling.

We found Eleanor and cheered her on! Eleanor had mixed feelings about the fan club but we didn't mind, we just love her so much.

She's so good. She looks like a climber. No wonder they promoted her.

Juliet enjoyed it and I climbed too, although I had forgotten how much work it is. Juliet will actually climb to the top of a route now and belay now, we were both pretty thrilled about it!

Eleanor doesn't like the games at the end of her classes so Juliet got to sub in for her. The rock climbing crew are so incredibly nice, we love them.

It's so nice how much love and support I get whenever I try to sit down at the computer and work on my laptop for a bit.

And then - first bit of fun surgery news for the month. Patrick's clavicle wasn't healing properly on its own so he needed to have surgery for it. I wasn't too surprised, part of the bone was still sticking up and was shoving the skin up on his shoulder so it didn't seem like things were going as they were meant to. Still, never great to have to have a surgery.

But fortunately for Patrick, this meant I didn't have to tell him to be careful when he was running all over the bleachers when we went to a high school football game in order to watch Bradley and Eleanor perform in the band. Nathan said, "what if he falls and the bone goes through the skin?" and I said, "It just means the surgery he already needed happens sooner. Whatever." Such good parenting ...

Bradley and Eleanor were very cute. They both really enjoyed performing. Eleanor has to swap back and forth between the bassoon for regular band and the flute for marching band, which seems like a lot to me but she acts like it is no big deal.

And I talked Nathan into taking just Patrick to a Royals game while he was injured because none of the other kids actually want to watch an entire baseball game and Patrick was rather annoyed the last time we went to a game because all the kids wanted to go to the kiddie area and he missed a lot of the action from the game. 

And extra perk - some of our small group friends were there so they had a nice crew to hang out with before the game.

It's really nice to have some one on one activities when there are four kids around. Although Patrick is the most willing to try things and go to sporting events so it certainly was weighted in his favor for this month.

He caught a free t-shirt!

And if you're injured you get hugs from the mascot

There was some deal going on where a bunch of mascots from other teams were there too. It was a good game to go to.

They had a great time! Great seats too!

Then that Wednesday was the scheduled surgery. Poor Patrick wasn't supposed to eat after 6:30 in the morning which meant he just didn't get to eat until the surgery at 4PM. He was still in good spirits when we checked in though.

Still feeling happy and excited while being wheeled in for surgery. It wasn't a bad surgery, so Nathan and I weren't too nervous, I just felt really bad for the kid because I knew he had no idea how bad he would feel afterwards.

It was bad. He was nauseous and miserable and everything hurt worse than when he had first broken the bone.

But at least we got to take him home. So nice to not have to spend the night in the hospital. He threw up a couple times in the car ride but was fine when we got home.

Hurting but doing okay the next morning. Gentle Callie was happy to nurse him back to health.

Actually she just wanted that spot on the couch. Nathan came out to check on him at one point and Patrick had relinquished his spot to Callie.

I sent the word out to all of his buddies that Patrick was going to have a surgery and was going to be feeling wretched, please send cards or videos saying to feel better. It turns out they also give you a lot of candy and cookies if you have surgery, Patrick was thrilled.

He was so pleased with how many buddies stopped by, I was so glad there was a bright side to things because he wasn't feeling too great otherwise.

Giant candy necklace from our neighbors.

New video game courtesy of Grandpa Dan. This proved very popular among his visitors.

Playing the video game with Hendrick while his friend Austin came by. Patrick recovered quickly but it was so nice that he got loved up a bit.

I've been on a cleaning mission with all my free time without having to take Patrick to sports. I found this old apology note from Patrick. Each one is a classic. This says: Dear Dad, I'm sorry that I groaned and whined all the way upstairs and slammed the door it must be very hard to live with that. Next time, I'll just say, "okay dad" in a cheerful manner and then go up to my room nicely. Love, Patrick.

I stayed home with Patrick while Nathan accompanied Juliet to the donuts with grown-ups morning at her school.

She also got to meet the Royals mascot!

And in the midst of all this we discovered that Patrick had a loose tooth that was ready to go. He chose removal by scooter this time!

And he and Juliet helped me test out some Girl Scout gear which I discovered during one of my cleaning endeavors. The house looks really nice now!

Bradley was excited to help Patrick catch up on some math homework, which was adorable.

And we got permission to remove the bandage covering the surgery site, which was rather impressive looking.

I think pretty much all of Eleanor's pictures this month are rock climbing pictures. Nathan gets to take her to her classes upon occasion now that they start after he gets home from work, and he is duly impressed by her climbing abilities.

Picture day! I told Juliet not to make this face for her pictures.

Much better.

I went to a Girl Scout trivia night at Chicken N' Pickle with some of my favorite leader friends. We didn't win but we had a lot of fun. I love Girl Scouts so much.

Nathan and Patrick and I left early on a Friday morning to go to the Laver Cup so that meant my parents watched the other three for a few days while we were gone. They even went to Juliet's fun run and cheered her on!

And they tended to Callie's many needs. She enjoyed getting to ride to the gas station with my dad.

Meanwhile, the travel crew hung out in the Delta sky lounge.

There's a whole series of photos from this trip that I call "Patrick being the 'special' child"

We met Thomas in San Francisco. He had us ride in a Waymo to get to our Alcatraz tour. It turns out I am deeply uncomfortable in a driverless car. But we didn't even run anyone over so we're calling it a great success.

I found Patrick the coolest sunglasses in the history of the world and we bought them for $10 from a street vendor.

On the ferry ride to Alcatraz

San Francisco in the background

It's funny, Thomas had been concerned about taking Patrick to Alcatraz because he thought he might be bored and not care about anything. It turns out we had the opposite problem. Patrick was so excited and had nonstop questions. So we found a guy who worked there and stood and had Patrick ask him questions for about 10-15 minutes. Thank goodness!

We had an audio tour and it took forever because Patrick kept pausing it so he could look at extra things.

Patrick had just heard of Alcatraz the week prior when we told him about it. Nathan watched The Rock with him and then we watched Escape from Alcatraz on the plane flight on the way out, so we did good prep work.

It was so pretty on the island, but there were a lot of flies. Apparently they hatch around this time of year and there's an infestation.

Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

The talks we had to have with Patrick about not flashing gang signs for every picture ... there are a bunch of pictures of notorious criminals that were in Alcatraz behind him.

One of the cells where a prisoner escaped.

It was interested that only about 560 convicts were on Alcatraz for the entire history of the prison existing. It seems like a lot of expense and effort for such a small number. Which is why they ultimately closed the prison, it was just too expensive to maintain.

Of course Patrick was going to try on handcuffs

Patrick loves photo bombing

We spent a long time on the island. Maybe about three hours. It was really fun to get to explore, I was glad we got to do something besides tennis in San Francisco.

Looking back at Alcatraz on our ferry ride back.

Meanwhile, my parents had also successfully gotten Juliet to the school playground for an evening 1st grade kickball play date.

We went out for brunch the next morning before going to the stadium to watch tennis. Side note - in typical Patrick fashion, we discovered that he had poison ivy all over the day before we left for this trip. He was a mess after Alcatraz and we thought we would have to try to find a doctor in San Francisco so he could get more serious medicine. But we were able to do a virtual appointment and just got him more of the dermatologist grade medication we already had. It was an ordeal, but it worked out, although Patrick did manage to get poison ivy on the inside of his nose which is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Oh Patrick.

We clean up nicely.

Brunch was right by the water. The weather was perfect.

Patrick discovered he loved fish and chips!

Then we walked over to the stadium. So exciting!

We battled people over the slim merch offerings but go a few things, including a white hat for Patrick, which he let me borrow for a couple pictures.

We watch two fantastic matches. We watched Zverez (3) lose to de Minaur (8) which was very exciting because they divide into two teams for this tournament and we were supposed to be rooting for Team World, so it was good for us that de Minaur won. Then we watched Rune (11) lose to Cerundolo (21) which was another exciting upset and was good for our team. 

Patrick was hyped up afterwards. We had a blast.

Weird mirror ball photo area by the stadium.

I suggested we go to Ghirardelli Square for chocolates and dinner afterwards. 

Poor Eleanor, I sent her pictures of where we were and she was jealous for the first time in the trip. I brought back a ton of chocolate for her and the other kids though, so they did okay.

Cool seating area upstairs.

What Patrick ordered. He was supposed to share with me but I was only allowed to take about five bites. This was his entire dinner.

It was so good. He was very generous whenever he found a good chunk of fudge and tried to give it to me.

He did say he felt a bit sick afterwards.

There were cute shops as we walked around the square. This one was clearly our favorite.

A pusheen with a Rubik's cube!

We found another Ghirardelli store below (there were three in the square, it was all very confusing) and Patrick found an arm sling buddy. They exchanged injury stories, it was very cute.

We found a pizza place for grown up appetites. You could see Alcatraz in the background!

Then we decided to go full tourist and take a trolley back to Thomas's apartment. Patrick and I were excited to watch still more tennis and we watched Taylor Fritz (5) win a huge upset against Carlos Alcaraz (1).

On the trolley! 

The streets were very steep. It was a fun ride.

We had to walk for about 10 minutes after this in order to get back to Thomas's apartment, which wasn't too bad but it was a lot for Patrick. He was a champ keeping up with all the activities with a time change and poison ivy going on.

The next morning we went by Thomas's shared work space to check it out. It had a nice view from the roof!

Patrick was suitably dazzled.

And we found a food truck area before going to the stadium for the final day of the tournament. There were at least 20 food trucks, it was quite cool.

We were in for a lot of tennis - four matches! We got there at noon and didn't leave until about 8PM.

Our seats were high up but we still had a good view of the action.

Patrick was very kind and took some videos of Alcaraz's serve so I work on my own game.

Alcaraz is Patrick's favorite player and we got to watch him play both a doubles match and a singles match. He won both. Patrick was in heaven.

Then for the final match there were some open seats down near the court so we decided to try to move down to them. It worked! Patrick was beyond thrilled.

It was crazy to see how hard they hit the ball, you could really get a sense of the speed of the game when you were up close.

Our team ended up winning, which was quite the upset. 

It took a lot of work to talk Patrick into not throwing his hat or the giant tennis ball down to the players to try to get an autograph. No one was signing anything on their way out. But still he got to see the players up close and watched so much tennis, he was in heaven. So was I, really. So much amazing tennis. 

But then, the next morning at our very early flight we happened to look over and see a familiar face. It was Taylor Fritz!! I was medium calm as I hunted through a bag in order to grab the Laver Cup hat for Patrick to put on. Then I looked around to figure out where Taylor had gone - it turns out he had sat down about five seats away from us. I went over with Patrick and asked him if we could take a quick picture and I was so relieved when he said yes.

Nathan came back from getting us food and managed to hunt down a sharpie for us that Patrick was able to bring over with him to ask Taylor Fritz to sign the giant tennis ball. I was very embarrassed to be bothering him again so I hung back and Nathan went over with Patrick this time. Nathan said something about a great day yesterday and Fritz said, "it's still yesterday" so I guess he never went to bed afterwards and just went out and celebrated with the team. Alex Michelson was there too, he's currently ranked #30 in the world.

Patrick got both their signatures. He was over the moon.

A thrilled kid. I guess both of the players live in the LA area so it's not too shocking that they were on our connecting flight to LA, but it was still pretty fantastic how it all worked out.

The trip home with the rising sun in the background. The sky looked like it was on fire, it was really pretty.

A tired boy on the car ride home from the airport after so much travel and time change.

I got lots of stories from home - Juliet informs me that she loves to play Swear Words with Grandma and Grandpa. She meant WereWords. It's a 20 questions type game but one person is the werewolf and tries to lead you astray so you don't ever guess the correct word. Bradley really wanted Eleanor to play with them and tried to convince my parents to ask her to play. They said, "Are you sure she'll play?" and he responded, "Yes, you just have to threaten her."

Eleanor did not get threatened or play the game.

Eleanor and Juliet's Halloween costumes came. They are both demon slayers from the Kpop Demon Hunters movie - Eleanor is Mira and Juliet is Rumi. They are both very excited about their outfits. Patrick is also being one of the boys from the demon boy band - Baby Saja. Finally a coordinated family outfit! I need to get the rest of us on board.

Practicing my braid game for Juliet - her girl has a very impressive braid she wears down her back. Juliet wanted a wig but I am 100% sure she would hate a scratchy wig so we're braiding and just using a colored hair spray.

Nathan was hosting a work event at our house so I spent the day cleaning and prepping with him and then about an hour before the event I started feeling a bit nauseous. It got worse and worse so I lay down on the couch and good news, I immediately had a nurse dog hovering over me.

I ended up missing the party and hanging out in our bedroom between vomit sessions in the bathroom. It was terrible. Juliet had stayed home with a stomach bug the day before but she seemed pretty perky and didn't throw up at all, somehow it twisted in me and ended up being way worse. Lucky Nathan got to still host the event, deal with multiple kids coming and going, and check on me, all while cooking burgers for everyone and making sure the party was going well.

I'm told everyone had a great time! I had insisted on a late September evening event when we were planning this so it wouldn't be too hot this year and it was perfect.

And Nathan took some nice pictures!

Juliet had an absolute blast.

I still felt a bit shaky the next morning so I took it easy by doing some deep cleaning of Juliet's bedroom. But then I came down in the afternoon and hung out by these guys and watched the new season of The Great British Baking Show.

It's nice to have something we watch as a family.

I also put Juliet to work helping me prep for a Girl Scout meeting the upcoming week. We were going to paint rocks and that required some clean ones!

Such a champ!

I stayed home from church because I was still feeling shaky but we did take Callie on a mini walk around the neighborhood. Some sprinklers came on and the younger two were excited to get to run through the mist.

Juliet wanted to paint nails so Patrick decided he wanted his nails painted as well. She did a fabulous job.

Bradley came home sick from church. He started feeling horrible on the way and came home and threw up a bunch. We thought it was my stomach bug but it turns out it wasn't quite that. By the evening he was stable and comfy and watching shows so we took advantage of warm weather for a family swim.

Callie is pathetic whenever Sookie comes around. Here she is hiding between my legs for safety so she can check out the kitty cat.

Juliet invented one roller skate + scooter time and it's been her favorite thing. We've had a lot of nice evenings in the driveway with neighbor kids and badminton and scooters/skates.

The Girl Scout event went well! Outside meetings are the best and it turns out that 6 year old girls love painting rocks!

And that evening I came home and made Bradley do dishes and I played badminton with Patrick and hung out while Nathan took Eleanor to rock climbing. But Bradley chatted with me at bedtime and it turned out that his throw up illness on Sunday was more severe than we had realized and he got to go in for emergency surgery at Children's Mercy downtown. But he's better now and we're so glad! He was excited to get to share surgery stories with Patrick. I couldn't believe that we had two surgeries on kids exactly 3 weeks apart. Although the nurses cheerfully pointed out that we had surely met our deductible for the year so this one was probably free. Hurray ...

No vomiting after surgery for Bradley but we got home just before 3AM so it was pretty tiring regardless. He got to rest up and took a nice nap the next day.

I was trying to demonstrate proper rest technique to him and Callie got very excited. She's been loving all the buddies on the couch this month. I could do with less of that! Prayers for healthy children for forever and ever would be appreciated, I don't want any of this again.