Memorial Day

I would imagine that Memorial Day means something a little bit different to each and everyone of us.

Hopefully for all of us in the U.S.A., it serves as a reminder of all the men and women who have served our country. Being away from friends and family for 2+ years is something I really can't get my head around since I've never served in our Armed Forces.

I can only imagine what it would be like to maybe miss the birth of child, miss their development during the formative years, missing them as start playing sports, special school activities or whatever else.

Maybe it's a spouse. Recently married or otherwise, we all know it's a HUGE commitment not only for the person serving in our military but for the spouse that remains home as well.

For me personally, it's a time that makes me dream of what it would be like to see my dad with Robby and now, Caleb.

Once again, I can only imagine the conversations that would occur between Grandpa Bob and young Robert James. Those are some head-shakers!

I can only imagine watching Caleb tease Grandpa Bob much like he teases everybody else and especially Grandpa Jim.

Dad has been gone now for a little over 14 years and I still miss him dearly and think of him daily.

It serves as a good reminder to spend time with the boys and try to enjoy even the frustrating times as you never know when the Good Lord will call your name. God bless you all and I hope that we have many more years of making memories. 

2012

2011

2010

2009

China - Part 16, First day in Guangzhou

Man, it's been a good solid month and a half since I've did one of our photo blogs and I sort of forgot where I had left off!  I had to go back thru blog posts re-live some good memories... Oh, the horrors!!!

So, with this post, we're covering our first day in Guangzhou, which was our last stop on our journey before we headed back to the U.S.A.

We arrived at the Guangzhou airport fairly late at night. I seem to recall our plane touching down around 9pm and then having roughly an hour to go to get thru security, find our new guide and the bus ride to the hotel. All of that went relatively smooth until we got to the hotel.  It's now a little after 10pm, Robby fell asleep in the last 3 minutes of the bus ride and now he has to pee. BAD.  There was a line of roughly 8 - 10 families in front of us (look behind the 3 muskateers in the second photo below. We were waiting in line behind that table). It was taking FOREVER to get our room.  Robby is hopping up and down, nearly to the point of panic and there ain't bathroom in site!  I take the boys out of the line and go stand over away from the people so Robby can flail about wildly while holding himself and making faces.  Finally, one of the dads that we had met in Beijing had come down to talk to the front desk folks about something and pointed us to a bathroom.  So with a very relieved Robby by my side, we stand and STILL wait for Momma to do the hotel paperwork so we can head up to the room and crash.  I think we finally made it to our room at about 10:45.

Robby was in his jammies and asleep within 5 minutes of entering our room. Caleb and dad weren't far behind. Momma got our internet connection set up and skyped with Aunt Molly's class in Des Moines, Iowa.  Unfortunately, Robby had been looking forward to the skype session for half the day but the only thing the class got to see was a sleeping Rob.

So the next morning, we got up, had breakfast at a new buffet, had some trouble with the coffee machine as I wrote about here, and joined up with the group down in the lobby for a trip to Shamian Island and the medical clinic there.  That is where we shall begin with the pix...

Every morning that we were to go some place, we would all meet in the lobby at a certain time.  The amount of kids, and parents that acted like kids, would always result in some games breaking out.  That's what Robby, Caleb and Liena were doing here; discussing the rules of how the game was going to go and most likely since Robby was the biggest, how he was going to win whatever game they played. :-)

They stopped for a moment while I tried to document their fabulousness.  Robby and Caleb stood still but Liena had a little dance in her still that needed to come out.

This is in the clinic. The Health Care Center of Guangdong, International Travel.  There was one tv in the place and it was showing Tom & Jerry cartoons so Robby planted himself on the floor in front of it while we took care of business.

Robby is directly below the bottom of this picture. The doors you can see on the right side of the photo lead to the main area of the clinic where it was chaotic.  No, serious. This back room area looks chaotic but the front room was absolutely nuts!  It was loud, we're trying to hear instructions and figure out where to be and what to do... chaos.

That's an examination room and table taken from the exact spot of the above two photos and the photo below this one. They just put the kiddos up on the table, drop trou and examine them.  Sometimes the close a curtain...

The seas parted... lo and behold, there was a clear shot of momma and Caleb waiting in line for Calebs exam.  He went nuclear shortly after this photo was taken and I went to join them and try to help settle him down. No dice though.  This was the beginning of our education about Caleb and what he thinks about doctors, nurses, hospitals and so on.

At this point, a lot of the people are either in examination rooms (they had three different rooms for us to visit) or waiting in the various lines.  I couldn't wait to get out of here so I can only imagine what Caleb thought!

So after your kiddo was dragged thru all three rooms of the clinic, you were free to leave and walk around the island. You just had to be back to the bus by a certain time.  We were happy to get the heck out of there and walk on what was a beautiful, cool Saturday morning.  This is about a block and half away from the clinic as it was just another "store front" like you can see on the right side of the photo. The left side of the photo is the moat that surrounds Shamian Island and is just off the Pearl River, which the beer was named after.

This is looking the opposite direction of the last photo.  That's just one of many of the raised roads around this city.  Also, the moat was fairly low and very stinky which takes away a little of the serenity that these photos otherwise possess.

This is kind of the same photo as the one above but I was trying to focus a little more on the tree this time.  Much like the Emperors Garden, the trees were nothing short of fascinating here!

Three of God's finer creations!

Little game with this photo.  Spot the crazy dude!  As Lesley stated here, there appears to be no OSHA in China.

That dude is on the third story flower ledge watering with a hose that is hooked up to a spiggot on the ground!  We didn't stick around to watch and see if he just hops from ledge to ledge or what he does from there.

The little critters in front of another interesting tree.

This is probably one of the photos we took with Aunt Doris (my sister) in mind based on the architecture of the buildings.

Just a simple shot looking down the main garden area of Shamian Island.  That's a huge chess board that apparently gets used.

A chance to ham it up a bit with some statues.  I like how the last kid statue is "looking" at the boys.

Another architecture shot...

and another...  The building that you can see in the upper left of the photo is the White Swan Hotel where we would have normally stayed had they not been remodeling.  I went in there because one of the boys had to "go" and they have a huge waterfall, fish tank thingy in there that was just flat out cool.  Part of me is happy that we stayed where we did, but a part of me really wishes we would have stayed there due to the nice quiet calm of Shamian Island.  You could just go out and walk without the constant fear of being ran over. Note I said "constant".  You still had to be on your toes here, but not nearly as much.

Back at the hotel in the afternoon.  A typical shot of the boys. Robby is playing football. Caleb is eating and teasing his big brother.

There will be additional photos of the island as we go back to get his TB test read, go to church and whatever else we did there.

Graduation... They grow up so fast!

I don't have much time to before I need to leave for band practice tonight, so I thought I would post a pic of little Master C in his "grad-gee-a-shun" cap with his pre-school teachers.

He missed the graduation ceremony due to our Iowa City appointment/check-up for his palate surgery but he still got the cap and they made a video of photos set to music for everybody that is downright adorable. Caleb will watch it over and over... and over... and over...

He's in there representing Holt International with their t-shirt. That's a proud little dude!

Anniversary Day!

Today is a bit of a special day for a couple of reasons.

1 year ago today, we were matched with little Chang Rong Bo, who of course, is now known as Caleb RongBo Schmitz.

That alone would be a good enough reason to celebrate, but it is also the anniversary of another "minor" event.

20 years ago today, I married my true love; Lesley Kay Bushman.

We are now old farts who look back and wonder what happened to the last 20 years...

In those 20 years, we've had 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 houses, 2 arguments (maybe a few more, but not many) 3 apartments, 3 surgeries (depending on how you count them), 4 lawn mowers, 9 cars (my memory is fuzzy...), roughly 29,000 meals, and about that many friends, if of course, you include family.  :-)

We've also had a WHOLE LOT OF FUN!

Thank you all for being part of the last 20 years.  I look forward to the next 20+ years and hope they continue to blossom the way the last several have.

Thank you Lesley for tolerating me. I love you to the moon and back!

Take care and God Bless!
Ted

Puttin' The Boys To Work

'Tis the season...

It's time to get the gardens planted but we've been a bit busier than usual this year with the additional boy, hospital visits, a moving mama (Grandma Schmitz) and so on.  So the garden(s) have been mildly neglected.  We do have a garden of onions planted that are doing well and our potato hills look downright gorgeous, if I do say so myself!

I had tilled all of them in the fall and then once in March so the dirt is nice and loose and easy to till now. Robby wanted to help so I gave him a brief lecture on how to handle the thing  (I was behind him except for when the photo was taken) and all of the stuff you need to respect on a machine like this.

I think he kind of liked it but was a little apprehensive when I stepped away for the pic.

Caleb is getting a little antsy about giving it a try too.  Neither boy likes to be outdone by the other, at anything!

So Caleb "helped" me with the smaller gardens.  The auger is not engaged but he got a kick out of holding on to the handles and just feeling the machine vibrate.

Someday, Robby and Caleb will be able to do this all by themselves and dear ol' dad will be able to sit on the deck, cold one in hand, and supervise the proceedings...   ahhhh...  what a dream.

Suppers After Surgery

Supers are an interesting endeavor these days.  

Caleb can only have food that can be drank from the side of a cup as nothing is supposed to go into his mouth.  No fingers, no spoons, no straws, no nothing!

So we've made a squash soup, a potato soup, a broccoli cheese soup... you get the idea.  

Momma has made the boys hot dogs thru the blender that looks pretty nasty, but they like it and as long as the boy is eating, so be it.

So I did a search on the fancy hi-tech world wide interweb for some new (at least to us) recipes for pureed foods.

This is what I came up with.  Take a guess at what it is.

Robby was looking at the picture and he said it, "looked like something that would come out of a cow", although he ate it and liked it quite a bit.

.

 .

.

 .

Give up yet?

It's spaghetti with a meat sauce.  I am still surprised on how good it was!

I've been curious about using meat in recipes thru the blender and now I'm not so hesitant, other than having to look at it.

I may try some chicken n' noodles this week but I'm not up for a steak... yet.

Caleb's Surgery - May 8th, Update

Just a quick update here...

Caleb is doing pretty good.  He's eating good, drinking lots of yogurt (thinned with milk).  He and big bro Robby had hot dog "shakes" for breakfast this morning.  That's right, hot dogs in the blender, thinned with water so Caleb could "drink his dogs".  They were both exclaiming how much they like it.

He's doing pretty good about not sticking his fingers and thumb in his mouth but even so, we still use the elbow braces on him at night as well as using tube gauze and a bandage wrap around his thumb and hand at night as well.  He doesn't like it much but I don't like the idea of sitting through another surgery and the hospital stay after such an ordeal either, so he'll have to keep wearing them for a bit longer.

He does have some irritation on his tongue that does not look good and I think it's probably similar to a bad sore throat.  He acts and sounds like he has a bit of sore throat too. Lesley called the surgeon about it and he said it's likely irritation from the tongue dealybopper that they had in his mouth for the duration of the surgery.

So that's it, nothing too exciting. Nothing too bad although it could be better if the tongue would heal up good.

That's all for now...

Caleb's Surgery - May 6th, 2012 Update part II

WE'RE GOING HOME TODAY!!!

We had an early morning visit from the doctor and he said that if we are comfortable with Calebs progress, that he will gladly discharge him today.

So, we are going home at some point today.  I would expect that we won't actually be released until sometime in the afternoon,  but I really have no idea.

He also took out the tongue stitch while he was here and Momma has since removed the remaining tape on his cheek to hold the stitch out of his mouth.

We're going to go for a quick walk as he's disconnected from his machines.

Caleb's Surgery - May 6th, 2012 A morning update...

Good morning from the University of Iowa Hospital. Caleb woke up feeling pretty spry and sassy this morning.


Well, that may be a bit of a stretch but a little optimism can take people a long ways!


I slept thru the night so I don't have many details about what went on but Lesley said at 1am, he woke up and wanted mom in bed to snuggle with him.  She got in bed then for the rest of the night (we were all up by roughly 6am'ish).  She was up one other time as sneaky boy was pulling the tape off of his cheeks trying to free up the tongue stitch.  In doing that, he lost the little-red-light-pulse-measuring-thingy-ma-bob from his finger, which causes the machine to read similar to flatlining.


That happened to me the day of the surgery shortly after Momma left the room for the first time.  He "flatlined" and I jumped up in a toot to try and call the nurse when I realized that I have no idea what button is the call button.  After pressing several things, all of which probably did nothing but change settings on the tv, I decided that I know cpr and I'll fix him myself!  That's when I noticed that he was breathing and doing everything else just fine.  :-)


So I started investigating the lines from the machine only to discover that he had indeed knocked of the little-red-light-pulse-measuring-thingy-ma-bob off of finger.  I put it back on and within seconds, he was "back".


So anyways...  back to this morning.


Here is the boy this morning:

He has had a little over 4 oz. of apple juice so far and probably an oz or two of water.

He's smiling at my "dancing".

He giggled at me pulling his nose off and replacing it with one of his ears.  Especially when I told him the next time they came in to take his temperature, they'd have to stick the thing in the ear in the middle of his face.

That was pure comedy gold for him!

That's about all for now... other than hoping we go home today!

More updates as we get them.

Daddy

Daddy's Gone Bored...

Daddy's Gone Wild! Bored...
What can I say?  You can only spend so much time in a hospital before you start to go stir crazy.  I have reached that point.  I try to go for walks occaisionally to stretch the legs and get away from the freakin' beeping machines just as well.

Today, I went on a quest to find some steps so I could exercise a little as the food I'm eating is not my normal Weight Watchers based fare.  I know that parking ramps always have easily accessible steps in them, so that's where I headed to.

While up there, I noticed that you could see the Kinnick Stadium scoreboard quite nicely and that might be a photo that our boy, Robby, might like to see. 

So I went back and got the camera and set out for another walk.  Not only did I get the scoreboard and stuff that I set out to photograph, I found construction sites.  I confess, I am a construction site junkee and that will likely never change.

Caleb has recently taken a shining to tractors of all types so I thought I would photograph a few around the hospital and show them to him when I get back to the room.

This is a construction site between the parking ramp where our van is and the building where little Caleb RongBo Schmitz is currently residing.  Two cranes.  A trench. Rebar.  That's good stuff!

Don't believe me?  Look at this rebar and tell me that you're not impressed!

Rebar AND a trench!!  I think the rebar in the previous photo is the same trench seen here and will be a basement hallway when this lovely construction project is all wrapped up.

This is not my favorite piece of equipment but I knew Caleb would like to see a picture of it, so here it is.

This ol' girl is a pretty impressive.  Smooth where she needs to be smooth, nice curves...  ahem...  moving along.

The work lights were sweet!  This is on the roof of the parking ramp.  They had either 4 or 5 of these bad boys clamped and bolted to the top rail of the ramp.  I tried to get some specs off it but I would have had to lean pretty far over the edge to do it.  I figured that I would either end up in the hospital (convenienent!) or jail (not convenient).

Obviously, the scoreboard that I spoke of earlier.  This is the back side of the photo I posted a couple of days back with Caleb standing outside the gate with the big gray wall of Kinnick up behind him.

Even more obviously Kinnick.  I'm not sure what was going on in there tonight, but there were piles of kids everywhere in florescent t-shirts and the press boxes that you can see were loaded with peeps as well.

This is the base of the tower crane outside of Caleb's hospital room window.  You never get to see the base of these bad boys because they don't want just any drunken yahoos to be able to walk up to them and start removing bolts as they see fit.  I believe they have 4 large footings poured and then bolt the base onto those.  If somebody gets to go home in one of the rooms next to us, I may go see if I can get a shot out of one of their windows.

Zoomed out shot of the same tower crane base.  That's a LOT of concrete sitting on the base of that thing!!! 

There she is in all of her regalness.  Gaze upon her. Admire her.

Calebs room is on the second floor (you can't see it due to the light reflection on the windows from the hallway I'm standing in) and is one of the rooms with the two little windows together where the building recesses back in sort of middle/left in the photo. 

That's about all for now.  Caleb enjoyed the pictures quite a bit and demanded I show the tractors to momma.  :-) 

It's 10:30, I'm exhausted and I should probably go to bed.  Caleb has been sleeping great for roughly an hour now.  He's beautiful, swollen little face and all!

Caleb's Surgery - May 5th, 2012 Happiness, finally! part III

An hour ago (it's now 8:30'ish pm American Iowa corn time), we were pretty much resolved to the fact that we were going to be here through Sunday night and (hopefully) be released at some point on Monday.

However, just recently, we were talking to the new nurse after the hand-off of patients at the changing of the guard.  While that was going on, we noticed that he had his mouth closed completely!  This marks major progress over where he's been because ever since his surgery, he has not been able to close his mouth because his tongue has been so swollen.

Also, his lips and cheeks are swollen as well as the soft tissue under his chin.  That last one makes him REALLY look like a Schmitz, the extra chin and all... well, as much as a small Chinese boy can.

The soft tissue under his chin has softened up too.  It has been really firm ever since recovery and quite puffy.

A few other developments is that we had the nurses unhook him from everything but the IV so that we could take him out of the room for a walk.  We walked around the pediactrics area and out into the hallway to look outside.  We looked at the fish tanks, the blue sky, the art work and found the "Art Center" where we got a coloring book and box of crayons for him.

We also Skyped with Grandma & Grandpa, Aunt Molly and the dapper, powerful & attractive Robert James Schmitz tonight.  It was good to see everyone and I think Caleb enjoyed it too, even though his tongue was still big at that time and he couldn't really express it.

Right now we're very excited about the recent developements although we know they can go the other way just as quickly.  

We still haven't been visited by the surgeon yet, which personally does not impress me although I have no idea what the dude's schedule looked like today.  I hope he shows up soon so that he doesn't come in 22 minutes after we all fall asleep.

So, thank you all for the prayers so far. Please keep them coming!  

Caleb's Surgery - May 5th, 2012 Ugh... part II

I'm simply posting that there is really nothing to post.

Haven't had a visit from his surgeon yet, although that should be coming soon.

Swelling has not gone down a bit, although they tell me that should be coming soon.

He did ask for coffee when he woke up from a nap today. That was better than yesterday.

He did ask to snuggle in the recliner with daddy today. That was better than yesterday.

We snuggled in bed all afternoon taking turns dozing and watching the NASCAR race.  Mom snuggled with him after that to do Starfall games on the computer.

Other than that, we've both pretty much said that we don't want to go home yet if he is this way tomorrow still.

And that, is not a pleasant thought.

As usual, I will post more when we know more.

Ted

PS  I miss his little voice!  The only time we get to hear it at all is when he gets bad upset and starts whimpering/crying.

PSS  I miss Robby's voice like crazy too!  He was wound up like a crazy man last night when I got to talk to him on the phone and that helped, but there is not substitute for the real mccoy.  Cyber hugs and kisses my bigger little dude.  Play hard at your soccer game tomorrow!  Wish we could be there...

Calebs Surgery - May 5th, 2012, "Got'cha" Day 5 month anniversary!

A celebration at the oasis, you ask?

Hardly.

The little man is having a rough day, much like 5 months ago except that where the pain was in his heart then, now it is in his face, his swollen little mouth, to be more accurate.

The swelling in his tongue did not go down overnight as we had hoped.  Apparently, it's not uncommon for it to not go down, and even for it to swell up more, in the first 24 hours.  If it goes up much further, we're going to have some problems.

He's also getting a little sore on the end of his tongue that looks similar to a mark/abrasion you would get when you bite your tongue hard.  That alone has to hurt much less what they did to the roof of his mouth!

The little guy keeps telling us that he's not having any owies.  I find that very hard to believe but every single time you ask him, he shakes his head "no".  Then when you ask if he wants the doctors/nurses to leave the room, you get a very emphatic "yes" head shake, so we can only assume he's telling us the truth.

Don't know much else at this point other than it pains me greatly to watch a person you love dearly, suffering and scared and not being able to do anything to help.

Anything but pray, that is.  Sadly, it's easy to forget that when he's agitated like he has been so far today. Perhaps that's my own immaturity in my personal walk with Jesus and a friendly reminder of where I can certainly do better.

Although, considering how well I know myself, I would think if it were indeed God showing me a sign, it wouldn't be so focused but much rather a very large, and heavy blanket of a sign covering all aspects of my life...

Hmmmmm...  considering that last paragraph, I should be going...

More later.
Ted (daddy)

Caleb's Surgery - May 4th, 2012 Surgery Day part IV

12:15 or so - we got to leave the goofy waiting area and finally head down to recovery to be with our boy. He was out when we got there and his face around his mouth was swollen. Something I was not expecting was the fact that his tongue was swollen as well. It makes perfect sense, just wasn't expecting it.

He has a stitch that goes thru his tongue and into his cheek so that if he has breathing issues this afternoon into tonight, they can lightly lift the stitch to pull his tongue up and open the airway.


When we were preparing to leave recovery and "drive the racecar" up to our room, he got very agitated and sort of panicky.  I reached my arm down to rub my thumb on his cheek and he grabbed hold of my arm and gave it a very firm hug.


Perhaps a little selfish of me, but it felt great because we've been discussing the fact that this could set him back a ways in his trust of us.  However, you wouldn't have guessed it from that arm grab/hug!


Another thing that happened is we were trying to figure out, along with nurse John, if he was in pain or what was aggravating him.  We asked him if he had "owies" and he would clearly shake his head to say no.  We asked him another question that I already forgot, and he clearly shook his head to say no.  I eventually asked him if he was scared, and he VERY clearly shook his head to say yes.


Mom and I were also rubbing his cheeks and the top of his head and mom asked him if he liked daddy rubbing his head, and he shook his head to say yes.


I am so very happy and thankful that I stumbled upon that while in the courtroom in Changchun as it works every bit as good for him now as it did 5 months ago.


We spent about 1.5 hours in recovery with him and he's been sleeping in our room ever since, waking up occaisionally.




Here's the little cutey in recovery.  This was taken almost immediately as we got there.  Tons of crap all around him and he would occaisionally wake up agitated. Big surprise with all of that stuff hanging off of you, huh?



This is back up in our room. Pretty much the same position but with a lot less crap hanging off of him. Dr. C. George is keeping a keen eye on him (Thanks Gonsalves!!!).

We had a couple of visitors recently.  Perky is the hospital's mascot and Herky is apparently the mascot of some local team...  I can't recall who though...  Oh yes, the Iowa Hawkeyes!  Too bad Caleb didn't have his Marvin McNutt jersey on when they visited! 


When they came into the room, Caleb's eyes were open just a tiny slit as he had just kind of came too. It took him a second or two to focus on them and when he finally did, he sort of jumped and got up on his elbows.  He wasn't so keen on it and eventually started to whimper a bit. They left and he flopped back down as if to say, "What in the h3!! are you going to do to me next!?". 

It's now 4:50 and he's waking up.  Momma is asking him if he wants to go for a walk or stand up for a hug, sit in the chair and rock or any other thing.  He does not. He wants to lay in bed.


More updates as we get them...

Calebs Surgery - May 4th, 2012, Surgery day part II

At about 12:15, the good Doc came up to speak to us.

Caleb is out of surgery since about 11:30am.  It sounds as if everything went about as good as we could have hoped.  He said that Caleb's palate has good two layer coverage now and it went without any serious complication.

We get to go down and see him soon.  I've requested that we be in the room prior to him coming out of anethesia so that he see's us immediately.  You know, what with the whole orphan thing, abandonment issues and the such.

Thanks for the prayers. We're nearly complete with the first part of this current journey.  We'll still need plenty more prayers for the next two weeks.

1 Thessalonians 5

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

¹⁶  Rejoice always; ¹⁷  pray without ceasing; ¹⁸ in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. ¹⁹  Do not quench the Spirit;

Caleb's Surgery - May 4th, 2012 Surgery day, part 1

We woke up about 4:40am this morning (before the alarm by 4 minutes!).

We got ready as quietly as possible since everybody else in the house could sleep for another couple of hours. Hopefully, we made it out without disturbing the masses.

We left for Iowa City (from Ely, IA.) around 5:15, arriving at the hospital with about 5 minutes to spare. Of course, we were a little naive on how far we had to walk once we were in the hospital, but that's beside the point.

We went straight to floor 5 even though we were apparently supposed to go check in on floor 6 first. The good part about that was is as we were walking into the area where Caleb would be admitted, two nurses asked who we were and we told them, obviously, so they marched right straight to the room where vitals and the same questions as yesterday will be asked again.

Thankfully, they're easy questions and we answered them all the same as we did the previous day.

Lucky for us, there were three episodes of Mickey Mouse in a row on so that took a little concern away from the little guy.

A parade of doctors and nurses came thru the room asking questions and telling us the same stuff, but with slightly different details. :-) They should work on that.

Finally, they gave Caleb some "Joyful juice" as one doc called it. They told us to keep an eye on him as he'll act drunk and try to wander off somewhere. Well, trust me, that boy wasn't wandering anywhere without mom or dad!

That being said, he did act like he was drunk. He was having trouble holding up his head and at one point let out one of the funniest giggles I've heard at something on Mickey Mouse that wasn't really funny. It was nearly as funny as the "HEY!!" at dinner yesterday when he discovered the sausage was gone!

Finally, they wheeled in the gurney and Lesley lifted him from my lap to lay him on it.

Joyful juice or not, he was upset and started crying out reaching for us. We promised him that we wouldn't leave him and so Momma asked if she could go with him until the put him under. They got her in scrubs quick and let her stay with him. She came back to me in about 5 or 6 minutes and we were off to the waiting area on floor 6 where we should have gone earlier.

The ear/nose/throat doctor got first crack at him this morning and called shortly after we were up there (probably 25 minutes) to say that his ears were cleaned out and that he did NOT need tubes. Wooo-hooo.

We were informed about 10:15 or so that the palate doc got a bit of a late start on him so they're still in surgery but everything is going well.

That brings us current. I'll post more when we know more.

This photo is as much for Robby as anybody else.  It's at the end of the skywalk as you enter the hospital from the parking ramp.  It's part of a Herky On Parade series apparently.

Caleb's Surgery - Thursday, Pre-op & other stuff

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 - We got Robby successfully dropped off at school (about 4 minutes late, according to his delicate mockings of his Momma) around 8:50 and hit the road for Iowa City.

Caleb was a happy, happy boy all the way while on the interstate, and for nearly all of the way from the interstate to the hospital parking ramp. He quite obviously recognized the pavilion and parking ramp area as he got noticeably agitated and upset as we drove in.  We got him settled down and looked at the football players in Sports Illustrated to occupy his brain.

This time, when they called his name, instead of wailing and crying big'ol crocodile tears, he just did his little whiny noise which tells us that he is experiencing some pretty intense anxiety.

He settled in when we saw the big fish tank and toys.  He got to play for about 5 minutes until they called his name for gathering vitals and asking Mom and Dad some questions.  He was worried but no tears.

For those unaware, this marks some MAJOR progress for the lad. 

We spent some time in the room reading books and doing temperatures and blood pressures and weight and stuff like that.

When the good Doc came into the room, he repositioned himself and latched on to my neck tight enough to make me squirm to regain airflow. But, no tears!

Finally we were done with all of that hoo-hah, and went upstairs to get some blood drawn.

Uh-oh...

We waited up there for a short time, maybe 6 or 7 minutes and he had me check his tummy a few times so that I would KNOW that he was hungry.  As if the steady reminders of, "Hungee.  Caleb hungee. Me hungee.  Hungee?" weren't good enough.

Then Anthonia Ibeawuchi (that's pretty close) called his name as best as a foreigner could. "Kallob?".

More whiny groaning, but still no tears.

Anthonia was a God-send, to put it lightly!  She pulled out the rubber gloves and Caleb started to cry a little.  She immediately said, "No, Kallob, touch my hand. Touch my hand."  He reached his hand out and put it in hers with the gloves on.  She started gently rubbing his hands and saying stuff like, "It's okay, it's okay.".  He settled right down.  He was sitting on my lap, so I had first hand evidence of it as you could feel his body relax.

She showed him the little tool used to prick his finger, and you couldn't see the needle.  He looked it over, approved it, and she told him as she gently took his finger, "Little sting, okay, little sting. It's all done now.". She then massaged his finger to get the blood in the vial, which he watched with razor sharp precision!  :-)

Once she was completely done, she gave him his choice of flourescent band-aides, he picked orange, and put it on him and released us.

Free at last! Free at last!

He was happy as a clam that we were done and walked tall like he does when he's coming home from preschool.

So we left the hospital, went over to Kinnick to take his pic with Herky up behind him.

He was excited that we were at the place where they played footbal.

Next, we drove to the Amana Colonies to have some lunch and do a little wine tasting.

The little dude in front of place where they might sell some flowers and stuff for your yard...  or something.

The boys on a swing that put daddy to sleep. Quickly.

Momma and Master Caleb on the bridge.

Caleb has taken a shining to walking on whatever walls that he can find.

The chocolate haus.  We were looking around in here when the lady working asked us if he was from Korea. We explained the situation that he was from China and we had only had him for about 5 months.  She has a five year old girl that they adopted from Vietnam a few years back.  Always good to run into folks like this and get some other stories (and chocolate!) and perspectives.

The building off to the right is where we had lunch.  We got Caleb a smoked pork chop that was outstanding. He thought so too, but he wanted my sausages, and he wanted them bad.  I cut the two sausages up into bite sized chunks and gave him three pieces of each kind.  He gobbled down a few bites of his pork chop, piles of sour kraut, tried the spiced apple, tried the cottage cheese, tried the lettuce salad, tried the taters n' gravy but poo-pooh'd them all.  He was happily eating away when all of sudden, he noticed that my plate was empty.  He got a really mad look on his face and said, "HEY!!".  The poor boy wanted more sausage and we were nearly dying laughing.  Thankfully, he was content with the remainder of his chop and green beans so we avoided ordering another meal.  :-)

We visited the Fireside winery as we experienced their wares at the Swine festival at DMACC a few years back.  They were just as good today!

We left there and drove back into Iowa City to go to John's Grocery where a fella can choose from probably close to 1000 different kinds of beer from all over the world.  Choose I did.  Football season can't get here soon enough now!

One of the reasons that we wanted to drive back into IC, is so that we could time how long it would take to drive from the hospital to Ely Iowa where we were staying with some new friends.  A heaping pile of thanks to Dan, Shauna, Lydia and Brooks.  Especially Mr. Brooks as he is the dude who gave up his bedroom for the night. Brooks also filled the void about as good as anybody ever could for me missing Robby.  He wanted me to read a book to him, I did.  He wanted me to play tickle monster with him, I teased, but didn't. He showed me a good number of all of his toys and cracked me up while doing it. Apparently, he had experienced a lengthy nap earlier in the day and the boy was firing on all cylinders!

Before heading to their house, we went to Applebees for supper as they weren't home from work yet.  Caleb was eating away and out of blue, asked where Robby was.  I told him at home. He looked concerned, because we obviously weren't at home and that would make big brother be home alone.  He asked again.  I told him that, "Robby is at home with grandma & grandpa". 

Whoops...

Caleb said, "OH!  Grand-a-ma & pampa?  Home? Caleb home?".  "No. Not yet", I said.  He responded and surprised me, "Why?".  Ummmmm...

Yikes.  I didn't go into the whole hospital/surgery thing with him. I told him that we were going to meet some new friends and that he could play with some new kid friends.  Thankfully, that was enough... for a little while.  On the way to Dan and Shauna's, he again asked if we could go home.

I have to say, as painful as it was for him to ask that and know what was coming in the morning, it was also very assuring that he calls our home, well... home.

Home is where we all wish to be and we'll be back there soon enough. Until then, there's a few roadblocks and hurdles for us.