Well, we got to celebrate sweet Joe's fifth birthday two days early - and we did so with fun presents, homemade sub sandwiches and cheesy potato soup for dinner (his request), and a dinosaur ice cream cake for dessert! He enjoyed every minute of it!
Then the next morning, we had him up by 5:30am to get ready for his trip to the hospital for his tonsil/adenoid surgery. Pretty cheerful little face at that hour of the morning!
George decided to come along to encourage his little brother, seeing as how he had just been through this same thing five months ago!
Poor Joe. He went off into the operating room with a smile on his face, and came back to us like this. He cried hard for over half an hour once out of anesthesia and it took a lot to calm him down. His oxygen levels were lower than they should have been, so he had to have O2 for a while...which just served as another uncomfortable thing for him.
We were glad to be released by lunch time and on our way back home.
The first few days weren't too bad. Joe was a subdued version of himself, but still our Joe! His actual birthday was a laid back day.
But then the pain really hit. Our poor boy - his worst pain was in his jaws/cheeks - probably from the residual pain of having his mouth propped open during surgery. For about five days straight, he kept ice packs on those cheeks almost around the clock. He was miserable.....
...and spent lots of time in mom's arms.
And napping. By the end of the second week, he was sleeping a lot more soundly, no snoring and packing in HOURS of sleep to heal his little body! Now at two weeks post-op, Joe is doing great and is running around playing with his brothers like normal!
Fall came upon us rather quickly. We tried to get up to the mountains to see some of the fall foliage, but the day we went was the first day of heavy snow and wintery weather! So much for fall colors! This is the best shot we got:
In our homeschool, we did a caterpillar-to-butterfly study for the first time. (When Jack was in kindergarten in Ohio we caught a caterpillar and saw it change into a swallow tail butterfly, but we never really studied the stages of metamorphosis.) We received six Painted Lady caterpillars in the mail from Insect Lore and within a week, they had all changed into a chrysalis. After about six days, Jack noticed the first one had hatched out of its chrysalis...and within a few days, all six were flying! It was an amazing thing to watch!
Though the weather has been very cold and rainy, we had one sunny day with temperatures just about 60 degrees, so we decided to release our butterflies before colder weather comes in!
Our other fun fall activity was visiting the family pumpkin patch in the neighboring town. The boys ran through the patch and each found a pumpkin to bring home.
This family farm also has a small section with animals to pet and feed. These boys....they sure have farmer blood running through their veins! They all just LOVED the sheep, pigs, goats, cows, bull and dwarf horses!
Our fall has been pretty busy so far - but not so busy that we can't enjoy the simple things that bring such joy to our boys!
1 comment:
Poor Joe. Hadley had her adenoids out this summer and she came out of anesthesia crying and alligator rolling. Worst 30 minutes of the entire day. Glad he is feeling better. What a blessing to have a sweet older brother.
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