Christmas

This year I may have been more excited about Christmas than the boys.  They were really, really excited!  During my childhood, I remember being super excited about Christmas and know that over the years the magic diminishes a bit.  I wanted to squeeze every bit of that magic out while the boys still have it. 

I could tell you a lot more, but let’s just say this year the boys got Legos and Monster trucks. repeat, repeat, repeat.  And they would not have wanted it any other way!!

Santa brought Rip-riders!

Miller decided he was done…and left it in the street.

Looks like a tough biker, that one!

Pitstop!  It was hot out there.

We had a wonderful time and I’m so glad that we were able to share it all with my sister Michele!

Christmas Program

Yes, I’m still just halfway through December, when it is halfway through January, but I’m going to keep on going!  Lucky you!

After Miller’s drama I spent lots of time trying to entertain him and keep him clean and dry.  I lost some of my mental health that week, but we survived. 

The boys’ school does a great job with twice yearly performances.  This year the theme was Island Christmas.  It did not disappoint.

However, my photography does disappoint. These pictures will give you a general idea of the show.  I wish I had videoed it, because it was precious.  However on that day, I just didn’t have it in me to get it together.  Before you judge, just remember that it was at the end of day 6 of being alone with Miller with no breaks. I’m just glad I didn’t pick up and really bad habits that week!

Miller’s class sang Mele Kalikimaka.  If  it the title doesn’t ring a bell, listen to the video and you might remember.  Let me tell you, that may have been the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!

Miller had a blast performing for everyone.  As far as he knows they were all clapping for him.

See what I mean about the pictures?

Miller still sings that song every. single. day.

Yes, my pictures don’t do it justice, but they were adorable!

Jackson’s class sang Island Christmas, and I’ve never heard it before, but they sure did a great job.  Jackson cracked us up.  He was trying to put on his sunglasses as he was getting on stage and ended up dropping them down his shirt.  He spent the whole song trying to get his hands to do a hula thing and keep his sunglasses from falling out of his shirt. His shirt sleeves were unbottoned, his Santa hat brim was tuned inside out and his shirt was half untucked by then.   Let’s just say he wasn’t quite in time with the other kids, but he was very entertaining!!!

Dropping his sunglasses down his shirt.

Hula moves are not best done while holding sunglasses in your shirt with you arm!

See the other children singing.  Not our boy!

At least he had fun

Look at that, he found sunglasses!

Somehow, he just couldn’t catch the rhythm for the rest of the song.

Love that boy!

At the end the entire school comes on stage and sings a song.  It is adorable and I loved every second of it!

I am so thankful for the sweet school the boys attend.  It is small and very much like a family.  We are so fortunate that the boys attend such a fantastic school!

December Drama (Long boring post where I document something for my memory)

December began with me returning from Florida with a bum, but mending knee, Jackson with a black eye and Miller with a cut in his chin.  We were all healing and trying to keep up with all the December  activities.  The first week I was back we had parties or activities on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, two on Saturday and one on Sunday.  Phew! 

We made it all the way to Saturday evening.  As Allen and I were getting ready, I put both boys in our tub so I could keep an eye on them and give them a bath before the babysitter got there.  Somehow, Miller managed to hit his chin in the tub and there was no avoiding it… this time he and split it even more, and it was obvious that he really needed stitches.  You know it’s bad when Jackson can only say,”That’s a lot of blood!”  We were able to leave Jackson with a neighbor until our babysitter arrived.

On the way there I was thinking about the different trips to the ER or Urgent Care we  have made.  I asked Allen, “I wonder how many more of these trips we have in our future”  Hopefully any future ones will be for minor things as they all have been in the past.

Here in Nassau, there are two hospitals.  We have been told by those “in the know” to go to the private one, so we have.  It is kind of like walking back in time.  A time where gauze is just left out in the open and then used without much thought to the germs floating around.  I shudder to think what the public hospital is like.  An interesting thing is that here you pay BEFORE you get treatment.  And you better have a big limit on your credit card.  Otherwise you’ll be heading down the street to the public hospital.

Miller did great when we got there.  When the doctor evaluated him, he thought calling a plastic was a good idea.  Then we were then told that the plastic surgeon was busy and couldn’t make it until 10:00…three long hours away.  We asked if they could please, pretty please call him again, and this time they thought to mention it was a child and he came straight away.

It was all good until they had to give him an IV.  He put up a good fight and continued to fight for a LONG time.  While I love his spirit and determination, it is not always easy hard as heck when he has decided he wants out of a situation!  Eventually they were ready to sedate him.  I was holding him as he fell into a very deep sleep.  The doctor was saying that they only had 15 minutes until he would wake up, so he worked very quickly.

Unfortunately, the way that they placed the bed for the best lighting, I was stuck in the corner while they opened up his cut, cleaned it and stitched it up.  I looked a few times, but it is not something I’m glad I saw.  Kim Troyer, I’m glad you weren’t there!  He got inner and outer stitches because that cut was DEEP!.  Sixteen stitches later he was done.  See how his sleeping with his eyes a little open?  Creepy!

Then we just had to wait until he woke up and we could go home.  The plastic surgeon checked on him again before he left the hospital, and said, I think he is going straight from sedation into sleep.  Made sense to me.  It was night time, when he was usually asleep, he had pitched a royal fit for about 20 minutes when they gave him the IV and he was tired.  Apparently the Plastic Surgeon failed to mention that the the other staff there.  We had to wait about 3 hours, all the while trying to wake him up so he could talk and walk before they would release him.  On the plus side we were entertained by all the patients that show up in the ER on a Saturday night! 

Eventually they realized Miller was night night and no longer sedated, and they released him.  We got him home, tried to tuck him into bed and THEN he woke up.  He was mad as a hornet and wanted that bandage off. He made it clear that he wasn’t going to take any Advil and he wanted to be left alone to take his bandage off.  He and I spent the night with him trying to take it off and me pleading with him to keep it on.  I prevailed!

Monday we had a follow up appointment with the plastic surgeon.  He changed Miller’s dressing and checked his stitches.  When I went to check out they told me that I owed $1500.  Huh?  The doctor just changed his bandage!  Turns out that the Plastic Surgeon bills for his services separate from the hospital.  Oh, and they don’t accept credit cards.  Would have been nice to know that before going to the appointment.  Surprisingly, I didn’t have $1500 cash in my wallet and the clerk seemed astonished by this. I offered the $6 cash that I had, but they acted like that wasn’t acceptable. Whatever.  Transferring money from savings was the only way they were going to get anything from us! Eventually they let us leave, but not before they made me feel awful for not paying anything. 

That began a very long week of Miller being home with me all day and not being able to go outside, or get wet. Let that soak in a bit.  No bath= no dirt + no sand.  No way!

It was really hard, but we made it!

November

Since Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here in the Bahamas, we had a regular school day for the boys and then had a special dinner.  Instead of Turkey we had a chicken and the traditional sides.  It was perfect for Allen and I, the boys not so much!  We are still working on their eating meat.  One day!!

We finished November playing lots of Monster Trucks, making cookies and getting ready for the holidays.

The Monday after Thanksgiving I went to Florida for an MRI.  I’d been dealing with some knee pain and when I finally went to the doctor, she said I’d need an MRI.  The complicated part of living here is that my insurance would pay for one MRI, so if I got an MRI here and it showed something, then I would need to go to Florida for treatment, (and then I’d need another MRI there --not covered by insurance).  Confused yet?  Well I was, but the bottom line was I had to go to Florida.  As it turned out, I had some torn cartilage and it needed arthroscopic surgery.    I went to Ft. Lauderdale on a Monday, had an MRI on Monday evening, and had surgery on Wednesday.  Sounds easy peasy, right.  It WAS and it wasn’t.  My surgeon was good, the surgery went well, but I got really sick from the anesthesia.  Being alone in a hotel room in a city where you know No One is no fun.  Eventually I got better and was released to come home on Friday evening.  Thank goodness I had a friend here who would help me with Miller and my sweet hubby was able to take off from work at 3!  Being sick when you have young children makes you so aware of all the roles we mothers play.

Here is a picture of my knee about 5 days after surgery.

Three little holes is all the evidence I have that there was surgery.  Thank God for modern medicine and a great doctor.

While I was away, the boys had their own medical adventures!  Jackson and another guy knocked heads at soccer and he ended up with a nice black eye!

Miller hit his chin on the tile steps one evening.  When Allen called to tell me he was trying to put a butterfly bandage on there, I was  not really concerned.  That boy can take a licking and keep on ticking.  He did not want a bandage!  Meanwhile Allen and my 2 friends who were there were trying to minimize how bad it was.  Allen called me back and said he was going to take him to the hospital for a stitch.   I wasn’t in favor of it because I knew they would have to sedate him for a stitch and I really didn’t want him to have to deal with that. They said it wasn’t that bad, right? I encouraged Allen to give him some Advil and Benadryl and when Miller conked out, THEN put the butterfly bandage on.  So he did that.  About an hour after all this hoopla I get this picture sent to my email…

Oh crap!  That needs stitches, but it was too late because a couple of hours ha passed, and they boys were in bed.  So we just went with trying to keep it covered up and telling him to be careful.   Sometimes Mamas are wrong when they make decisions about things when they don’t have anything to base their decision on.  Oh well, everyone has a scar there, right?

November

Since Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here in the Bahamas, we had a regular school day for the boys and then had a special dinner.  Instead of Turkey we had a chicken and the traditional sides.  It was perfect for Allen and I, the boys not so much!  We are still working on their eating meat.  One day!!

We finished November playing lots of Monster Trucks, making cookies and getting ready for the holidays.

The Monday after Thanksgiving I went to Florida for an MRI.  I’d been dealing with some knee pain and when I finally went to the doctor, she said I’d need an MRI.  The complicated part of living here is that my insurance would pay for one MRI, so if I got an MRI here and it showed something, then I would need to go to Florida for treatment, (and then I’d need another MRI there --not covered by insurance).  Confused yet?  Well I was, but the bottom line was I had to go to Florida.  As it turned out, I had some torn cartilage and it needed arthroscopic surgery.    I went to Ft. Lauderdale on a Monday, had an MRI on Monday evening, and had surgery on Wednesday.  Sounds easy peasy, right.  It WAS and it wasn’t.  My surgeon was good, the surgery went well, but I got really sick from the anesthesia.  Being alone in a hotel room in a city where you know No One is no fun.  Eventually I got better and was released to come home on Friday evening.  Thank goodness I had a friend here who would help me with Miller and my sweet hubby was able to take off from work at 3!  Being sick when you have young children makes you so aware of all the roles we mothers play.

Here is a picture of my knee about 5 days after surgery.

Three little holes is all the evidence I have that there was surgery.  Thank God for modern medicine and a great doctor.

While I was away, the boys had their own medical adventures!  Jackson and another guy knocked heads at soccer and he ended up with a nice black eye!

Miller hit his chin on the tile steps one evening.  When Allen called to tell me he was trying to put a butterfly bandage on there, I was  not really concerned.  That boy can take a licking and keep on ticking.  He did not want a bandage!  Meanwhile Allen and my 2 friends who were there were trying to minimize how bad it was.  Allen called me back and said he was going to take him to the hospital for a stitch.   I wasn’t in favor of it because I knew they would have to sedate him for a stitch and I really didn’t want him to have to deal with that. They said it wasn’t that bad, right? I encouraged Allen to give him some Advil and Benadryl and when Miller conked out, THEN put the butterfly bandage on.  So he did that.  About an hour after all this hoopla I get this picture sent to my email…

Oh crap!  That needs stitches, but it was too late because a couple of hours ha passed, and they boys were in bed.  So we just went with trying to keep it covered up and telling him to be careful.   Sometimes Mamas are wrong when they make decisions about things when they don’t have anything to base their decision on.  Oh well, everyone has a scar there, right?

At Last

You thought I dropped off the face of the earth, right?  Yes, and no.  Our computer died.  We have a back up computer, but it has no memory and so I couldn’t download pictures.  What are blog post without pictures?  Bor-ing!

A mere 6 weeks later we are back in the 21st century!  By the way if you had asked me if I could wait 6 weeks for a new computer, I would have told you that I couldn’t make it 6 days, but when you’re out living life, time does fly!!

In November Allen and I  went to the Marine Ball.  It’s nice to get dressed up and go on a date with my sweetie!

We also started our weekly Saturday soccer games.  Jackson is a pretty good goalie.  Which is a good thing since his team has yet to score a goal….all season.  Last week they only lost 1-0, so at least there’s that!  These are from one of the first games before he was goalie all the time. 

He is good at concentrating, but not so good at getting in there when there are 20 other kids trying to get the same ball.  I don’t like people in my space either, so I get it.  Goalie is great for him.

 

Really he wants to be on the playground.  Can you tell?

Last week he had five saves!  After all his team is the The Optimists!  They can still win this!

I’ll attempt to get caught up on my blogging this week, so hold on, it is going to be fast and furious!