He Eats

A thinner, paler, slightly less energetic TJ asked hoarsely for a bowl of noodles with Panda sauce long after bedtime tonight. He got it, and ice cream after that. The doctors said to load him up with calories, and we have been, but I hope he gets clearance for broccoli and carrots before he forgets what he has learned about nutrition. He lost at least 8 lbs. after his surgery, and he was only hovering around 50 lbs. when he started. He has the pep now to chase the new kitten and to accuse his sisters of taking his toys. He's definitely on the mend but still in high-maintenance mode.

Home Again, Home Again

After a bit of a wrangle with some arrogance and the aid of an amazing nurse, we got TJ sprung from the hospital last night. He has been home about 24 hours or 27 Spongebob episodes. Sure enough, home cooking (not Mom's) saved the day. He gobbled down steamed eggs Chinese style, sesame-paste-filled rice balls and a squeezable snack called jelly-juice from the Asian market, then more of the same and still more. He's a little grumpy and awfully imperious after his reign in the hospital, and he says he's bored, but he keeps eying a gummi Krabby Patty his sister brought home. It's so nice to see him eating and drinking again.

Last night, the first thing he did after the car ride home was to vomit. Oh no. We kept him quiet and it didn't happen again.  We started thinking that perhaps that miraculous Tylenol with codeine really was at fault for upsetting his stomach. We called the doctor and asked if we could switch to plain Tylenol. That seems to work just fine, and his tummy has been in good shape since then.

Next Stop, Nurses' Station

I have known a few superhuman creatures in my life, and many of them are nurses. They attack the messy, the complex, the recalcitrant with grace and gentleness and vigor. TJ has been messy, complex and recalcitrant since we too him to the ER last night after a listless day of coughing and vomiting every drop if fluid we managed to get down him. He was admitted and treated for dehydration, given buckets of IV fluids, eventually some antibiotics, a chest X-ray and several rounds of respiratory therapy, poking prodding, vital-signs checking, offers of toys and crayons and ice pops.

He's staying again tonight.

The poor guy has a  very sore throat, exacerbated by the vomiting and coughing and the fact that everyone forgot he had been taking pain medication every 4 to six hours.  As a result, he was completely uninterested in any of the exciting offerings on his clear-fluid diet. The doctor changed the order to a soft-foods diet. Nothing appealed. TJ asked for an ice cream sandwich, but it was "too spicy."  Then came the aha moment. The pain medicine! The nurses worked their magic and it came in, in a syringe  shoved into a glass of ice, like a shot of silvery vodka. Once it took effect he asked for blue ice cream. I am ferrying some back to him, wondering how he will have upped the ante by the time I get back to stake out my spot on the recliner. It's clear that TJ has no control over his environment and he is holding fiercely onto what little control he has. It's also obvious that the pain in his throat and nose and esophagus and tummy and ears and the memory of the pain of the last few days,  is a powerful factor. But how can he win the game and win a pass out of the hospital? Ah well, maybe the novelty of peeing into a jug will wear off.

Stumbling in the Dark

TJ is crying in his sleep, which is pretty much an echo of the day, losing those precious bodily fluids that we have been cajoling, begging and bribing him to swallow. I am tempted to calculate the price per ounce I am paying various game Web sites for his grudging compliance. Poor little guy. He has been clinging to me like crazy and retreating into his talking  Iron Man helmet every times he sees a medicine cup, nasal spray bottle, ear drop vial or evil Pedialyte pop headed toward his fortress on the sofa.

He has tried  holding medicine or milk in the front of his mouth for minutes at a time to avoid swallowing. And I have tried telling him that if he doesn't let me hydrate him he will end up spending the night in the hospital.

We tried to get TJ to eat some dinner: baby food, Chinese dumplings, 3 kinds of ice pops, bread moistened with milk. It was not long after he got his red liquid medicine (administered with a little syringe to the side of his mouth because otherwise it's "too spicy," when the lights went out. TJ clutched the giant flashlight but was uncomfortable around the candles and insisted on going outside where the summer solstice light remained.

He sat on the steps with me, injecting a few milliliters of water into the side of his mouth, having decided that the squirt-gun delivery system beat normal swallowing. His sisters ran to the driveway with the sidewalk chalk.

'Biggest Tonsils Ever'/Live Blogging From Surgery Center

I feel like I'm a reporter again.


TJ is out of surgery and we get to begin our four hours in the recovery room shortly. The doctor came out to tell us TJ's (former) tonsils are the biggest she's ever seen and that his adenoids "run a close second." She had a lot of choice adjectives like "infected" and "purulent."

But now they are gone and TJ will be able to breathe through his nose at last. And sleep without snoring down the house. And go to school without falling asleep.

TJ and His Tonsils/Live Blogging From the Surgery Center

TJ and Dr. Mom prepping for the OR

We scooped up TJ in his PJs and brought him in to get his tonsils and adenoids out and ear tubes put in. He took this photo just before we were escorted in to the operating room. What a way to celebrate six months in our family! At least he will have all the ice pops he can eat. He went into surgery with his new Ironman hand and glove on. Good thing we didn't have the helmet. The anesthesia mask was scented with bubble gum. He cried a little, and squeezed out a couple of those huge tears, then his eyelids fluttered shut. We'll see him soon in the recovery room where we'll have another on-the-spot report (not).

What's the Matter With Meimei

Tonight Meimei told me, again, that she doesn't love me. She started this a month or so ago. The first time she said it,  few minutes after her shocking pronouncement she added, "Am I breaking your heart?"
Now it has become a nightly ritual. She finds a pretense for anger, or perhaps just an excuse for anger already bubbling within. Tonight it was my singing. "No singing!" she ordered. Of course she has never liked my singing. I resorted to recitation. "No talking!" she said even more sternly. I said good night and turned out the light (and no she's not sleeping in her own bed, in case anyone was wondering). I reminded her that I loved her forever, no matter what.  "I DON'T love you forever!" was the reply.

Meimei in China, 2007

Further, she does not love her sister or brother. Only Daddy and one of her babysitters. Then she started trying to pound my hand with her little fist. I kept moving out of the way. She got me a few times. i told her it hurt and then reminded her we had a family rule against hitting. The hitting stopped. A minute or so later, I felt a small hand pushing against me.
"Do have to make a rule against pushing?"
She grunted.
I snorted, which usually makes her laugh.
She grunted a few times then dropped off to sleep.

In the daytime, she is as loving and eager to please as usual. Even then, she doesn't tolerate my singing, one of the few chinks in her armor of patience and compassion. Of course is any kid REALLY that compassionate at 4.5 years old? Now that we have determined she is not the panchen lama, we need to figure out what  she's giving voice to --- something that always was there behind her meditative mien? Or just one of the many changes she's going through? And what does she need to hear from me in response?

Spinning Out of Control

TJ, Meimei and I made a trip to the otolaryngologist. TJ and Davyn got hearing tests. Mommy was treated to the Epley maneuver.

Meimei's hearing was perfect. TJ's ears were filled with fluid (no wonder he has trouble with final consonants in English),  his tonsils big as meatballs, his adenoids short-timers. We had expected a wait-and-see approach, and were prepared to push for more aggressive treatment, but the doctor made up her mind in seconds.

So, more trauma for TJ, and ice pops and toys and finally, we hope, sound sleep, the ability to breathe normally and relief from the bouts of sinusitis and tonsillitis and bronchitis.  Learning -- and everything else -- should get a little easier after it gets a little harder.  We took the first open surgery slot. It just happens to be Dad's first day at the new office.

Then it was Mommy's turn to get a vertigo treatment. It takes a long time to scrape up the courage to face the spinning and accompanying anxiety. Past treatments haven't worked and this positional vertigo has persisted for five years. A sort of headphone beamed some kind of electrical impulse into the bone behind my right ear to agitate those crazy otoconia that are lodged in the wrong canal. My head hung over the back of the examining table first in dizzy position for 5 minutes, then straight back (normally also a dizzy position) for five minutes and then five minutes hanging over the table to the left. After that, a slow move to a sitting position. I felt great. No sign of that residual near-vertigo I feel at the dentist or hair salon. Woohoo! I walked slowly down the hall to the crowded waiting room where Meimei and TJ were waiting with Haley. TJ jumped up and I snapped my head around, the room made a quick quarter-turn and I was sitting on the floor, feeling very silly. Don't look up, don't look down, don't nod, get a neck brace, try to get down four flights of  escalator at  the Port Authority.

Just a few days until TJ's surgery, and another vertigo treatment. And the world keeps turning.

Headlines

Preschool Moving Up Day, 98 in the shade.

Meimei's Pre-K Report Card Lauds Her 'Fashion Tips' to Teachers; Meimei Mum

TJ Wants to Be Cub Scout; Not Sure What It Means, But Likes Derby Car on Brochure

Jiejie Refuses Vitamin Unless It's Crushed Up in Nutella

Meimei's Report Card Calls Her a 'Diplomat'; Meimei Mum

TJ Loves the Dentist (Or Is It the Goodie Bag?)

Meimei's Report Card Says 'Practical Life' Activities Don't Interest Her; Like Mother, Like Daughter

 TJ Issues APB for Daddy; Shows Mommy Giant Stuffed Bear Tucked in Where Daddy Had Been

Daddy Found Watching Basketball on TV

Stress Tests

Jiejie and Meimei have been running fevers since Friday night, sleeping fitfully, whining, asking for their cool drinks in the baby bottles they turn to, sometimes for fun and sometimes, I think, because they need to be babies.

Mommy is still fighting whatever virus she had, but she is very far behind and has missed a few important deadlines and a day or work, not to mention all of Memorial Day weekend.

TJ is over his tonsilitis, but we have not heard the last from his tonsils.

In two weeks Daddy starts his new job -- or rather his old job in a new place -- about 120 miles away. That is just a few weeks after his mother, Grandma Mollyne, died suddenly, just when she was getting her strength back and planning to travel to Germany for an exhibit of her paper mobiles.


It's all rather overwhelming. No wonder Meimei is crying at preschool and TJ is making us promise never to go to China again. (He is afraid he will have to stay there, and that this is all temporary.) The children's sense of stability and security is shaken. They will not be happy to hear that for the next nine months or so, through the first semester of the next school year, they will see a lot less of Dad because of the long commute. And Daddy seems almost too busy to grieve. He was in touch with the office almost without interruption during the three days he took off after his mother died.

Still, there is a lot to be thankful for. The kids had a perfect Mother's Day at Grandma Mollyne's apartment, surrounded by art, complete with ice cream cones scooped by Grandma. In her apartment there was a pile of plaster hands, life size, gaudily decorated. They hung from trees on Governor's Island for a show a few summers ago. Everyone could use a hand now and then ...


Mom and Dad will have been married 25 years on July 5. That in itself is an accomplishment.  And somehow, in spite of tight work schedules, we will get to the beach this summer. 

So, the garden isn't planted, TJ has no Social Security number yet and the taxes are not filed. The summer is likely to bring a tonsillectomy before we see a ripe tomato, and a recent house guest was right when she said our home was in the same disarray it was in after we moved here two years ago.

But soon we will be moving on toward a new set of challenges. If you're ready, raise your hand!