Tonsil and Adenoid Day

It was a long night of no sleep the night before. At 5 am I decided to get up and get going with my morning. I remembered I needed to turn off my alarm since I was getting up before it went off. Guess what I set it the night before, but didn't turn it on!

Once we got to the hospital they took us right on back to AUS and got Elijah into a bed. We had a couple of hours to cut up and act goofy as we normally do. We were all laughing so hard I know people on the other side of the curtain wondered what in the world was going on in our cube.

I was so very glad they allowed all 3 of us to be back there with Elijah, because if Elijah had to choose only 1 person he was going to choose Dakota and I would have had to step in and say "sorry charlie" I'm going back there. Dakota and Elijah have a special love between them. I think it has to do with Dakota being so much older than Elijah. My brother and I have this same special love and we are 13 years apart.

Here are several shots of Elijah before surgery while we waited.

Elijah playing his Dsi.

He was very tired and really wanted to go back to sleep.

This is Buster with Elijah. You really can't see him, but he is a cute stuffed dog. Elijah got Buster when he was 1 year old. Buster has been through every surgery and hospital stay with Elijah since getting him. Elijah no longer sleeps with Buster, but the day before surgery I asked if Buster was going to the hospital with him and he thought about it and then said yes.

Here they had gave him some medicine to relax him and make him feel goofy. It backfired and made me, Jody and Dakota act that much more goofy.


This is the last picture of Elijah before surgery. They had just put in the IV. IVs are hard on Elijah. He has veins like me and they have to stick him several times before catching one.
I pulled his hair up in a ponytail so they would be able to get it all in the surgery cap.

They came and took my baby away. I stayed strong for him, but it is very hard to let someone push your baby off to be put to sleep and cut on. We've done this many times before and it never gets easier.

They left us in the cube and said the doctor would come talk to us when he finished. That 40 minutes seemed like a long time. Finally the doctor came and said Elijah's tonsils and adenoids were HUGE. Every time he has ever had head x rays they have told me that. I still don't know why everyone comments on how HUGE his were, but for some reason they did. He said everything went well and gave us a room number to go to and said Elijah would be there shortly.

We all raced up to the room and waited to see Elijah. After about 30 minutes they brought him in. He looked like he felt so bad. He started throwing up right away. He was still sleepy, but was in too much pain to sleep. He was also very grouchy and so unlike Elijah.

We were able to get him to sip some water, more throwing up. Throughout the day he sipped, threw up, slept.

Here is the only picture we have of Elijah after surgery.

Around 4 pm it had been a little while since he had thrown up so they were going to let us go. Just as we got everything ready and was about to leave he started throwing up. The nurse called the doctor and we had to stay a little longer. The doctor came by and we asked him for pain meds through the IV and he said no. He did give us a prescription for numbing suckers and phenergan cream to rub on his wrist.

Once home Elijah continued to throw up and just cry in pain. My heart hurt so bad for him. Wednesday and Thursday were some hard days and nights. Elijah and I slept on the couch. I was trying to keep the phenergan cream on his wrist before it would ware off, but he was still throwing up. He felt so bad and was in so much pain. I kept thinking surely he'll be better tomorrow. Thursday night I was crying regretting that we had this surgery. I didn't expect it to be so painful. Actually I really expected for Elijah to have pain meds through IV with a home health nurse like the doctor and I had talked about when we were in his office. I had made up my mind I would take in him on Friday.

Friday morning brought a nice surprise of Elijah feeling better and no throwing up. I really appreciate all our friends praying for him. About mid morning I decided he was doing well enough not to make a trip to the doctor. He still feels bad, but at least he's not throwing up and crying.
He sat at his computer for a short session of playing Spore and he has laid on the couch watching TV. Right now he is laying on the couch playing PlayStation with Jody. I am so thankful he is not in pain like he was.

He sounds funny talking. No one mentioned that to me and I just wonder when that will go away. Or is this his new voice? If so, we might need to re-think choir.

I think tonight Elijah can sleep him his bed and I will get in my bed for the first time since Monday night. I have a baby monitor I can turn on so I'll be able to hear if he needs me.

Thanks for the prayers, our friends are awesome to lift us up in prayer when needed.
We plan to lay low for the next week or so and enjoy our rest time. I'm going to use this time to plan some school stuff for Bristle Ridge Academy and work on my co-op classes.

Good Days, Bad Days

I never know which Elijah we will wake up to. He has good days and bad days.

This is Elijah on some days. On this day he slept on the couch until about 2:30 in the afternoon before he was ready to do anything.


This was Elijah today.

Another one bites the dust...

Elijah killed another snake today.

I would have never seen this snake on the tree. Elijah may have eye problems and have 5+ lenses, but he can spot a snake.

At first he was standing there shooting it with his BB gun. I was afraid he was too close and the BBs were going to bounce back and hit him in the eye, so I told him to get a shovel. I meant the shovel with a long handle!

Okay I got a little chuckle out of that after I typed that. I was afraid he'd get hit with a BB, but yet I was letting him kill a snake and I had no idea what kind of snake it was at the time.

It was just a baby rat snake. Elijah so wanted it to be a poisonous snake. He was a little disappointed when we said it was only a rat snake.

Working on art projects - part 2

Dakota is also busy working on art projects. He has painted this board white to prepare it so he can paint something on it. I can't wait to see what he comes up with.

He has been working on this Paris picture for several months now. I think he still has a little touch up to do on it, but he is close to being finished.


I don't know what he plans to do with this odd shaped picture frame, but I'm sure it will be great.


This is an oil portrait Dakota finished recently that I think turned out really cute.


Here is a close up of the hair technique. This is oil paint just squirted on. It took that hair a very long time to dry.

We will post pictures of completed projects as they are finished.

Busy working on art projects

Elijah has been busy working on art projects.



Here he is painting wood pieces that he will be able to make into a castle.

Elijah has been working on this hand project for several weeks now. I wish I would have thought of this project when you was much younger and had him to make one every year.



We will post pictures of finished projects as they are completed.

Tonsils have to come out!

Elijah continues to get strep over and over. I think I stopped counting when he got to #12. That's just in a years time.

His doctor sent him to an ENT several months back, Dr. D agreed the tonsils needed to come out, but he wasn't going to do it. Dr. D said it was too risky for Elijah to have the surgery. He really put the fear in me about it all.

Elijah continued to get strep, even more often now, about every two weeks. And his rocephin shots are not working as well since he has been getting so many. Dr. R said the tonsils have to come out. He said the strep infection could cause more problems like going to the brain or heart. Okay so he put the fear in me then.

Dr. R sent us to another ENT. Dr. B said those tonsils and adenoids have to come out, no question about it. He scheduled the surgery for July 28.

Most kids get to eat lots of ice cream after this surgery, of course Elijah will not be able to and if that isn't bad enough.... kids also go home on antibiotics and pain meds. Elijah will get neither. He can't take meds by mouth. I'm really worried about the pain. I don't want my baby to be in pain and not be able to help him.

Jody's cousin's husband is a compound pharmacist and someone (thanks Nicole!) told me he makes a numbing sucker. I called him to find out what's in this sucker to see if Elijah will be able to have them. After talking to Tim and telling him Elijah gets a lot of ulcers in his mouth and I put Orjel on them, we determined the suckers will be safe for Elijah. The sucker is just sugar and meds. The suckers are the size of a Dum Dum sucker and they are $4 EACH! LOL At $4 each the sucker needs to be the size of a blow pop! I do hope the suckers will help with the pain.

So I'm asking everyone to pray for Elijah having this surgery. My concerns are the pain, and infection. Thank you for taking time to pray for Elijah.

Dakota had Elijah convinced he wouldn't be able to talk for two weeks. He told Elijah even if he felt like he could talk, not to try it. Jody spilled the beans, so Dakota's plan didn't work.

Living Math

I'm trying to use more living math in our school day. I think Elijah is good at math, he just dreads workbook pages.

I've been looking a Math on the Level and I'm still trying to convince myself it's worth the $$$.

Today for math we played a game with egg cartons and little glass stones. I really don't know what you call these little red, white, blue and green pieces. I picked up a bag of them at Dollar Tree to use for game pieces because we are always making up games.



We reviewed the 9's addition facts. After reading more of Charlotte Mason and about living math, I wanted to go back and re-enforce what Elijah already knows with hands on living math.

I told Elijah that 9 wants to be a 10 so bad that he always sneaks one over. If you have 9+9, 9 will sneak one over and make himself a 10 so you end up with 10+8. We went through all the 9 facts showing how this works.


Next we played a ring toss game. I called out the 9 math facts and if Elijah could tell me the answer right away without thinking he won a ring to toss. He spit the answers out as soon as I got the last number out of my mouth.
I got these rings in the dollar bins at Target. Oh and our sea salt grinder came from Sam's. LOL I planned to get a 1 liter coke bottle and fill it up with water when it's empty to use for this game, I just haven't bought the coke yet.

I'd say we had a good day of math. Matter of fact Elijah didn't want to stop.

Tomorrow I will give him a page of 9 facts as a review.

Do you have any math games you'd like to share? Please tell us about math games your family plays.

Workboxes

I don't know how far we will get tomorrow, I don't expect to get through all 12 boxes. This may be 2 days for us.

1. space class online
2. 4th of July notebook pages
3. egg carton math game
4. hand art
5. online math class
6.butterfly notebook pages
7. math game
8. trivia cards
9. pipe cleaner animals
10. vocabulary cards
11. Ancient Egypt
12. skill workbook

Firework show

Last night the boys and I went and enjoyed the firework show at the river. Dakota got a few interesting shots with his new camera.

Happy 4th of July

We don't usually do food stuff for holidays, but this was something we could all eat. The kids made this flag rice crispy treat. They did a good job on it even if the colors turned out pink and baby blue. It was yummy too.

I haven't been blogging much lately, although I've spent plenty of time on the computer. Dakota and I have been busy working on our homeschool website. http://www.nelcha.org It's still not complete, we are waiting on information from the board. Dakota does the work, I just come up with the ideas. I tell him what I want and he creates it.
We'd love to see other homeschool websites, so if your group has a website post the link for us.

I've also been researching and planning for our school year. I've never been one to plan out what we are doing and I probably not going to start now. I'm more into making list and having the freedom to choose something on the list for that subject.

Dakota will be a senior this year. He has most of his credits already so he will have an easy school year. I better stop there or I'll end up crying thinking about it being his last year to homeschool.

We should have an easy school year. Right now we are only committed to the Thursday co-op. I have thought about 4-H for Elijah because they only meet once a month, but we'll see when the time comes. After the over committed year we had last year I'm looking forward to a nice calm year.