Head-Banging and Ear-Tubing

Well, it has been waaaay to eventful since my last post! On Monday night, we were getting the kids ready for bed, and Katie was all riled up, running down the hall. Those adolescent motor skills couldn't handle the raw speed, and little miss Katie flew headfirst into a corner and opened up a nice new hole in her head... It was extremely stressful for everyone as we quickly assembled for a journey to the ER. Jen took Katie and I stayed with Andrew. They went to Children's hospital 9as we wanted to make sure we got good care from child specialists since we were concerned about any scarring.)

Well, they arrived to find a waiting room full and were told they had a 4 hour wait in front of them. We called Scripps and found that they had a slightly shorter wait, but figured it would be the same when you work int he travel time. So we decided to stick it out at Children's Hospital. This decision was made at 7:oopm.

8pm

9pm

10pm

11pm

12am

1am

2am

3am...

Finally, at 3am, they get SEEN. I won't go into the full horror story of the waiting room (as I can already feel my blood pressure rising as I'm recounting this) but needless to say, we were furious, tired, worried and outraged, all night long. Thankfully, Katie received great treatment once she got seen, and she is now recovering nicely. It appears that they did a great job on the cut, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that there is no long term damage.

(This is the part where I decide not to rand for 10 pages about the condition of Califonia's health care system and illegal immigrant problem.)

I'lll be honest with you all, that night changed me in a number of ways. This was my first time dealing with trauma and one of my kids. I actually felt that both Jen and I handled it better than I would have thought. But the 8 hour waiting room torture chamber... that gave me way too much time to think about things. Priorities.

OK, so they got home at 3:30. Yes, it only took about 10 minutes to do the procedure to 'glue' her up. By the way, Katie was amazing throughout the entire ordeal.

Couple days pass.

So today we took Andrew in to get Ear Tube surgery. He has been having some bad ear infections for a long while and we finally decided to get this done at the advice of doctors and friends. We were pretty stressed out about doing this considering the experience we had earlier in the week, but I am pleased to say that everything went just about as good as it could have. The doctors were awesome, everything went off without any complications. Andy was a stud and has already pretty much fully recovered.

We were going to go to SB this weekend but decided to hang back, and just get some rest in. Jen and I are both pretty wiped-out at this point.

And last but not least... today is a special day for yet another reason. My dad, patriarch of the Sandwisch line, has turned 68! Happy Birthday dad! We love you, miss you, and hope to see you soon.

I Wanna Be Darfth Vader

This is an addendum to the previous post. For some reason Andy seems to really like Darth Vader. Should I be worried? Click the link below to get proof...

"I wanna be Darth Vader"

Bash Teh Gah!!!

Jen arrived home with the kids the other night after I did (for a change). Andy had just spent an hour watching Katie do Tap and Ballet so he was fully wound-up and ready for some manly activities like wrestling and bashing stuff. When they came in, Jen asked me to help them was their hands. I took Andy first to the sink and started the scrubbing. Suddenly, he starts yelling...

Andy: "BASH TEH GAH! BASH TEH GAH! BASH TEH GAH DADDY!"

At first I was worried he was hurt or something, he seemed thoroughly dismayed about something. I wondered if the water was too hot...

Andy: "BASH TEH GAH DADDY! BASH TEH GAH!"

Me: "Andy, what's wrong, what are you saying? I don't understand..."

Andy then rolled up his sleeve a little more to show me that his tattoo of Sebastian the Crab (from the Little Mermaid) had all but washed away. Only a little fragment of the poor crustacean was left.

Me: "Ahhhhh, Se-Bast-ian's gone! Yeah buddy, he sure is. Bummer."

Andy: Very serious now, looking me square in the eye, "We nee uh nut er one daddy."


This actually happens quite often that I don't understand him. I love it though. Jen thinks I'm weird when I sit there with him and make him say words that are difficult to pronounce. I just do it cause we both laugh every time. He's such a great sport about it. Some of my favorites:

Platypus: "Pat-puss"
Porcupine: "Porka-pie"
Quantum Physics: "Kanum-Fissess"

It's great, he doesn't even really try to say it right. I think he realizes that mispronouncing things is silly. This kid cracks me up.

New Bed

Andy has been commandoing out of his crib for a few months now. So we made the move to get him a new bed. Its ity-bity, but it fits him just fine. He and Katie helped me put it together tonight. Surprisingly, he seems to have taken to it quite well. I'm sure my next post will have something in it about how he is coming into our room at 3am and sticking his finger in my ear to wake me up...

Sidewalk Chalkings

Overcast but warmer now. We busted out the sidewalk chalk today. Good stuff. I was dazzled by Katie's partridge-family-bus rendition of the rainbow dolphin. Katie also got a new haircut.

Grabby Geese

So we went to Lake Miramar this last weekend. When I was a kid, my dad used to drag us all over California to different lakes -- so I figgured it was about time to start passing on that tradition. Lake Miramar is probably more of a pond than it is a lake, but it's super close to where we live so it was an easy trip.

The kids loved it. We brought some bread with the intent of feeding ducks. Well, these two geese IMMEADIATELY confronted us as we came down to the shore. Apparently these geese (which were as big and as tall as Katie and Andrew) had absolutely no fear of people. They were honking really loud and getting RIGHT in our faces. It was so bad that Jen and the kids literraly threw the food at me and took cover from a distance. I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated myself. The were searously trying to grab the bread out of my hand and going for the bag. Those were some crazy geese!

Once we fed them, they seemed to calm down a bit and actually swam away after they realized we had nothing left to offer. We then did a little walking and checked out the fishermen, fishies, and collected a few pine cones. Good stuff.

Happy 64th Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom! For your 64th I put together a slideshow for you (and others) to enjoy. Hope you like it!

Mom's 64th Birthday Slideshow

"Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty four?" .. you bet!

The Particular Things

What is it that drives us to be particular about certain things?

I think we can all understand the preference to have our environment one way or another to make us feel safe and comfortable. However, it seems that we all have unique isolated preferences that border on needs -- and that seem to have no logic or significance when examined objectively. What truly puzzles me, is the seeming randomness in how or why we choose these certain 'particulars'. They are different for so many of us, and yet we cling to them like tiny isolated obsessions. Kids seem to be a great window into this, as they react so dramatically when their security particulars are even slightly tweaked.

Instructions for keeping Andy from having a fit in daily life:

He drinks an Apple Juice/Water mixture that usually borders on 40% Apple and 60% water. If you ever try and slip him water... forget it, he blows up.

The door to his room must be half-way open when he goes to bed. For those of you who have ever tucked him in, you know how important this is. Oh and Andy will remind you about 20x as you are putting him down, just in case you missed the first 19.

When done with bath, blue elephant bath towel must be put on immediately, and wrapped with the paws tucked in and around. Any failure to properly wrap will result in complete hysteria.

Baseball hat (which is adored and worn most of the time) must be self applied. While adult application of said hat is tolerated, subject must be allowed to remove, and re-apply.


Instructions for keeping Katie from having a fit in daily life:

Clothing selection must be self determined. Pre selecting clothing without approval by subject shall be considered an affront to personal freedom and will be met with hostility and ridiculous whining.

Milk shall be consumed in bed, in a sippie at bedtime. Milk shall be heated for 45 seconds. Under heating, overheating, juice, water, or absence of milk shall not be tolerated by subject. If milk is not ready when bedtime ritual begins, subject will remind the preparer that she desires WARM milk. When milk is then prepared and presented, subject will again ask if the milk is warm, and will look preparer in the eye to attempt to determine if there is any deception afoot.

Seatbelt shall be self-secured. Any attempt to interfere with setbelt administration will be me with crying and general anger.

Barbies have the universe's most complicated fashion agenda, and no Barbie can leave the house without wearing the cosmically determined outfit. Said fashion agenda's documentation seems to only exist inside the heads of 4-year old girls. Attempts to deter or interfere with this process shall be met with torrential resistance.


(Pics presented below to show subjects in agreeable state)

142

So we had a nice little weekend, hope you all did as well. Nana dropped in for a surprise 24 hour visit, which was lots of fun. She treated Jen and I to an hour to ourselves at Balboa Park, where we took in the Annie Leibovitz expo. Later in the day we had some time so we decided to go bowling (all the cool kids are doing it these days, at least according to my sister.) We had a great time. Kate and Andy had never been before and they really got into it. Nana bowled like a pro but Jen crushed us all with a 142. I was pretty impressed with my wife and now have a new back-up plan in putting her on the pro tour, in the event that I ever find myself unemployed. Kate and Andy were comical. Katie would push her ball with all her might, and jump up and down and cheer her ball-on as it rolled down the lane. Andy on the other-hand, would walk up to the line, chuck his ball down with a thunderous 'bam!" and stand there and pose like a gangster as his ball rolled about 0.5 mph down the lane. It wasn't long until he had quite a crowd admiring his style. Well, check out the pictures, you can see for yourself.

Fall Slideshow

Had some spare time tonight. Made the new slideshow. My apologies in advance to the faces I didnt get in (you know who you are!) Get in front of my camera already! Nono, it's my fault, I'll need to do a better job of gettting pics of everybody. I'll do better next time. Enjoy...

Fall 2006 Video