At Least It's Not a Spica Cast!

Sometimes you can prepare yourself for something - something good, bad, no biggie. But it's not until that something actually happens that the reality of it hits home. We've had the past few days to think about Ailey having her arm in a cast for a few weeks, but it wasn't until the cast actually went on today (and they go on lickety-split, by the way!) that it hit me. She's going to start preschool in a cast, visit cousin Luke in Houston with her cast, take baths with it in a plastic bag.... "Ugh" went through my head. But only for half a milli-second. My next thought was:

THANK GOD IT'S NOT A SPICA CAST!!

Today (Is that the hand-jive?!)

May 2007

She'll have the purple cast (Andy already calls it her Husky cast) on for 4 weeks, then we'll go back for xrays and to have it removed. Doc said there shouldn't be any lasting issues.

Ode to Sammamish

The title of this post is a little misleading as I do not have aspirations toward poetry. (It's a good thing I don't have aspirations toward poetry - I'm pretty sure that if passing the 5th grade had hinged upon the quality of my Haiku poems I would still be sitting in Mr. Zigler's class. I'm no poet and I know it. See?) So a from-the-heart good-bye to the City of Sammamish Department of Community Development will have to come from my ramblings instead....

Making the decision to leave the City of Seattle to take the Building Official job at Sammamish a year ago took a lot of thought on Andy's part. The Seattle building department has been almost like "home" for Andy since he was an intern there during his senior year of college (we met that year). But moving into a managerial role at Sammamish was very exciting, and, of course, working with Devany would be just silly to pass up! ;) Besides, she had raved about the people Andy would be working with, so there were no qualms there.

The decision a couple of months ago to move back to Seattle took even more thought. There was absolutely no reason to leave Sammamish, so all the points on the "Reasons to take Seattle job" side of Andy's pros and cons chart were provided only by Seattle. On the "Reasons to stay in Sammamish" side of the chart I believe one of Andy's points was "Leaving Sammamish would suck". (OK, I might be taking some liberties with the terminology, but you get the point.) In Sammamish Andy was working with people he really likes and doing a job he has sincerely loved for the last year. In fact, his commute was the only thing he didn't like about the job. Leaving a good thing was always going to suck.

The draw to Seattle? He's moving into a management position in the largest jurisdiction in the state, with the potential for upward mobility in a career he has spent the past 10 years building upon. He is good at what he does, and I think people know it. I am so proud of him! Seattle also requested him for this position, and it's always hard to pass up the opportunity to go "home".

Saying good-bye to Sammamish today - something I got to do a little of at the family picnic this evening - was bitter-sweet. My kids and I only visited Sammamish a few times, but everyone there was always welcoming and made us feel like we were part of the family too. Thank you for that. We are all feeling sad about the good-bye. Ailey actually cried, seriously, when Andy told her that he wasn't going to work there anymore. You never really know what's going through a 3-year-old's head, but that was pretty much the gist of it for Andy and me too!

I'm sorry I couldn't make my Ode to Sammamish rhyme, but the sentiments are sincere nonetheless. Thank you for the past year, DCD staff ... until we meet again!

Rain, a Playdate and Surgery

Our week started with rain. Heavy, solid, mid-west style rain. I love these summer rains, even here in western Washington where rain is as common as Starbucks and microbrews. It's still warm enough outside to keep your windows open, you can watch the raindrops in the kids' swimming pool, the breeze wafting into the house smells fresh, and your (my) hair goes frizzy enough that your (my) 3-year-old notices and comments on it. (Wait, that last one was something I don't like about summer rains.) Last weekend it was warm enough to break out the above mentioned kid pool and bring the babies outside to sit under the tent. A day after the rain (thanks to our new waterproof blanket) we were able to go back outside and sit in the sunshine.

We had Jen, Parker and Levi over. It was a fun playdate, and Ailey and Parker actually did pretty well sharing. :) Below is a picture of Levi, Ailey and Parker playing the piano. Below that is a picture of Parker and Ailey when they were about 11 months old. Fun comparison.

On Thursday Andy had knee surgery. He injured it last spring and it has continued to get worse. He finally got it checked and an MRI showed that he tore his meniscus, requiring an arthroscopy. Things moved quickly from the first appointment a few weeks ago to the surgery this week since he wanted to have it all done before our health insurance changes at the end of the month. I realized how quickly it all went down when I talked to my sister on Thursday afternoon and found out she didn't even know Andy was having knee surgery. I think it sat in the backs of our minds until Wednesday night when we really talked about what would happen if he ended up having something more wrong with the knee, and more extensive surgery requiring 6 weeks of crutches, something his doctor said was a 5% chance. On the night before even minor surgery "5% chance" feels a lot more like "99% chance" and we both suddenly got really nervous. Luckily, Andy has a 95% type knee and he was able to walk out of the surgery center. The doctor did say that he had to remove 90% of Andy's meniscus cartilage, he called it a "nasty" tear.

We've both wracked our brains trying to think of a more interesting and exciting story for how Andy hurt his knee - playing basketball, crashing his motorcycle, chasing bank robbers - but I guess our creative juices aren't quite flowing today. However, considering that his fence project has been long and consuming, I suppose it's fitting that he injured it (and probably continued to aggravate it) while building our fence.

Andy resting on the couch with Silje and Ailey.

And in between playdates and cuddling with Papa, Ailey wore something other than her cheer outfit one day....

The girls posed on the blanket in the backyard.

Marin got a bit of an Elvis hair-do after her bath.
And that was it for our week, until.... (see next post)

You Know You Have a Tough Kid When....

I look at my kids in amazement and wonder every day. Sure, some of those days I'm amazed that a 3-year-old can whine that much, and I wonder what my 7-month-old must be thinking to have such a look of revulsion on her face at the mere taste of carrots. But a lot of the time I'm amazed and awed by their intelligence, creativity and imagination. In Ailey's case I've also always been amazed at how tough she is - when she falls down she gets right back up. Today I found out just out tough she really is.

Yesterday I took Ailey to the school to let her ride her bike around. She got it for her birthday this year, but we don't have a good place at home for her to ride. Thus, she hasn't gotten much practice. She's really good on it though - still working on coordination but she's got the basics down. She was riding it down a very slight hill, I let her get too far ahead then called for her to use her brakes. She turned to look at me, thus turning the handlebars, and went over onto her side. I'm still not sure whether the bike fell on her arm or if she put her arm out to stop herself. I felt horrible that I wasn't right next to her like I had been up to that point.

She ended up with a sore wrist all afternoon and evening, but she was more wimpery than all out crying in pain. We had a rough night last night though, with Tylenol and "Cold Kitty" (a kitty shaped freezer gel pack), a lot of fussing and restlessness, and not much sleep. She was favoring it this morning as well so I decided to take her to the walk-in clinic to get it checked for a possible sprain. Instead, the xray showed she had fractured the bone. I was shocked and instantly felt even more guilty about my part in her injury. I asked the doctor how much something like this would hurt. He said it would hurt pretty bad and that she must be a tough kid. I knew she was a tough kid, but now I know just how tough.

So now we have two members of our family in bandages. Ailey smiled when I told her that hers would match Papa's knee bandage. She'll go to the orthopedics department of our clinic next week sometime for a permanent cast. The kid is 3 and is on her 3rd stint in a cast. Good grief!

Here she is proudly showing off her "broken arm" and cast. Stay tuned for pictures of the permanent one later this week.

Luke Winston Dutchin

My sister, Sarah, and her husband, Winston, had a baby boy yesterday. Luke Winston Dutchin. He's beautiful, of course. Proud Aunt Jenni is very excited, as is the rest of the family.

Ailey might have to warm up to the idea of him being a boy cousin, she was sure it would be a girl! In fact, after I hung up the phone with Sarah and started talking to Ailey about her new cousin Luke, the first thing she said, with a bit of a frown on her face, was "I thought it was going to be a girl!" And it's disastrous for a 3 year old to find out that what they thought was going to be, wasn't! Of course, if not for the fact that I have just told this story, wrote it in such a way that we will now always remember it, she probably would forget there was ever any disappointment! Darn Mom.

Ailey and I are very excited to meet Luke in September when we go to visit. Welcome to the family, Luke!