update...

Where do I even begin??? So much has happened in the past couple of weeks....

The obvious place.... Andrew's surgery. It went amazingly well. He was such a trooper through it all. You would never know the pain and discomfort the poor little guy had to feel judging by the constant smile on his little face. Through it all, he was happy and playful -- literally you'd never know anything was wrong with him...

Thankfully, Matt's parents came down the night before his surgery and helped us out more than words can say. They did it all -- took Katherine to school, helped out with laundry, played with Caleb.... everything. We couldn't have done it without them. His dad left Monday morning and then Matt took his mom back to LeMars the following Friday (as in -- she was here over a week). We had him dedicated in church that Sunday (Mother's Day) so they turned right around and came back down a day later. Thankful does not even begin to describe how I feel. I am incredibly blessed and overwhelmed to have in-laws who are more like parents to me that "outlaws"!

A few things I'll never forget --

* How horrible I felt handing my baby boy over to the doctor and watching them walk down the long hallway knowing what his next few minutes would be like and I wouldn't be with him. I stood there watching Andrew laugh at the doctor and grab his face, while I had tears streaming down my own. The pit in my stomach at that moment made me physically nauseous.

* The long wait while he was in surgery. Matt and I had breakfast, and then he went back to the hotel to check out while I paced the hallways. That time seemed to drag on for a lifetime........

* Being called back to the waiting room knowing that Andrew was out of surgery but we couldn't see him yet. All of a sudden an older woman ran into the room and asked me two questions -- if he had any allergies and if he was breastfed. When I told her yes to the later, she said, "Well that explains that" and ran out of the room. She was super odd, so I didn't give it much of a thought. About 5 minutes later a young girl came to bring me back to Andrew. Evidently only one of us could go back, so Matt waited in that recovery room while I went to get him. As soon as we rounded the corner, I head him crying ... eeerrr... screaming. The young girl told me that there was NO WAY it could be him as we were way too far away from the room that he was in. Sure enough, down a VERY long hallway and through two sets of double doors the screaming got louder and louder... It was Andrew, and he was inconsolable... In fact, he was so ticked off that he kicked the IV out of his foot and the nurse had to call the doctor to put it back in. She thought he was in a crazy amount of pain and needed something to take the edge off. I immediately grabbed him from the nurse and started cuddling with him and singing. By the time the doctor got there he was fast asleep.

* The quick pit stop we had to make in Williamsburg to buy ginormous onezies which he would live in for the next two weeks.

* The trouble we had getting him to take his medication -- all three bottles worth -- Tylenol with codeine, something for bladder spasms and an antibiotic. It was horrible. He would cough, gag and try to spit it back out.

* The horrendous diaper changes. I couldn't have done it without Fran. Two diapers, a catheter, ointment, the works... Changing his diaper was an event in itself. It was quite the production...

* His first bath -- watching the water turn red, trying to take off the bandage, and then seeing the flow of fresh blood. It looked HORRIBLE, and Fran and I were terrified. Neither one of us felt competent to care for this!

* Through it all, spending every day with a little boy who always had a smile on his face and couldn't wait to play with you and interact. He was soooo happy... You'd literally never know he just had surgery.

We went back to Iowa City on Tuesday and had his catheter taken out. His doctor said that everything was perfect, and most likely he'll never have a problem. We need to bring him back in the future just to make sure everything is OK, but it looks like we're in the clear!

Sooo... in other news....

I HAD A DAY YESTERDAY.....

Katherine's car seat was in Matt's car and since she had gymnastics, I ran downtown to pick it up from him. I loaded up the boys, picked up Jimmy John's for lunch, and went down to meet Matt. We sat in the car, had lunch together and just hung out for a little while. We said our goodbyes and I was on my way. On the way to the interstate, I got into a horrible car accident. It was my fault. My kids were in the car. I just cried and called 911 and Matt. I have no idea what I was thinking but I was reading the signs to get to the interstate and looking a block ahead of me and totally missed a red light. I went right though, and didn't even pause. I got T-boned right in the side door where Andrew was sitting. Oh man.... The other vehicle was a 1993 Olds car and I'm positive it'll be totalled. We hit hard enough that the impact swung my Sequoia around 90 degrees and Caleb's car seat was jarred sideways. Oh man.............. I'll never forget the sound of the impact ... the glass breaking, the metal denting, the other car being ripped apart. I can still hear it when I close my eyes. The other car looks horrible. Glass and metal were all over the intersection. Shockingly enough, if you looked at my car, you'd NEVER know it was in the kind of car accident that it was. The other car hit my tire and side running board thing. Other than that, there is very little body damage. The impact, however, was so hard that Matt was literally picking pieces of the other car out of my tire.

Thankfully, he arrived on the scene before the police and took care of everything. I'm so grateful for him.

I'm sure they'll be many more "accident" updates to come.....

Today the Launderville's came over and Caleb and Caden played all morning. They had a great time! After they left, the boys and I went to Katherine's school for her art show. It was so cute! A little background.....

On Wednesday I went with her class on a field trip to the Art Center. Mrs. Seybert taught them about 6 different artists and told the tour guides to specifically point out paintings by those artists. What I didn't know was that she had each of them create a piece of art in the same style as each of the artists they studied. Today, she had the class replicate the Art Center experience for the parents. They all made matching paper mache hats and each child had a job to do. Katherine was a tour guide -- she was supposed to tell parents 3 facts about each artist, and there were also security guards that made sure we didn't "cross the line" (LOL), greeters, restaurant staff (they handed out lemonade and cookies) etc... It was sooo incredibly cute.

The real kicker.... When we got to Van Gogh, Katherine immediately started crying. She couldn't remember her three facts about him and was WAY upset about it. All of a sudden, Caleb gives her a hug and says, "That's OK Katherine. I don't know anything about him either, so we're twins! Actually....". LOL!! How sweet is that!!

Oh, and one more thing before I call it quits on the blogging front tonight.... (Yea, I know how random and rambling this is.....)!

Matt got me a DQ cake for Mother's Day -- evidently weight watchers was forgotten that day! LOL. Anyway, after dinner we all had a piece. I looked at Katherine's plate and noticed that she had eaten all the vanilla and hadn't eaten any of the chocolate yet. So we have this conversation:

Me: Why are you eating your cake that way?

K: (Laughs).

Me: No, I'm serious. Really why haven't you eaten your chocolate yet?

K: (Laughing and nervous at this point). I will.

Me: No, Katherine. I'm not kidding. I HAVE TO KNOW. WHY HAVEN'T YOU EATEN YOUR CHOCOLATE YET????

K: (She's totally giving me this 'you are insane mom' look). Why???

Me: Matt, Look at this!! Look at the way she's eating her cake!!

K: What???

Matt: Laughing... OH. My. Goodness.

Me: Katherine, Seriously... I need to know. Why didn't you eat a bite of your chocolate ice cream yet? I really WANT to know.

K: (Laughing). Because I like it better than the vanilla so I save it for last.

Me: I knew it! I knew it!

K: What?

Me: That's exactly how I eat my cake! And for the same reason.

Can you believe it? Katherine and I are one and the same. We've got the same quirky idiosyncrasies, that just keep popping up. It cracks me up! AAAHHHH.....