Thankful Thursday

1. I am SO thankful that Dr. Canning was able to complete the entire hypospadias repair in just one surgery! Here's to hoping and praying that many years pass before anyone in our family has another surgery. I've entered an operating room six times over the past 5 1/2 years, Ian had four surgeries, and Oliver had one.

2. I am also very grateful that Paul's parents were able to watch Nadia and Ian, especially as we ended up being gone from the house for 29 hours straight (longer than expected).

3. We've been enjoying our Olympic unit the past couple of weeks. One of the great things about teaching is that your students aren't the only ones who are learning. I learned a few things about some different sports and famous athletes as well!

4. My former Dean, my former Department Chair, and a former colleague all agreed to write me letters of recommendation. I was able to obtain a report of my cumulative student evaluations from 2004-2012.

5. Paul got a snow day today! He's had two weeks in a row of just teaching two days a week. I'm sure his students were even more appreciative of the day off today because he was going to be giving an exam in his 9:30 class.

6. We went to a program at the library on Tuesday afternoon about soup. The kids cut up potatoes and carrots and dumped other ingredients into the slow cooker to make chicken vegetable soup. The librarian read a few books about soup, they made a craft about soup, and of course ate the soup. Well my kids didn't eat the soup. They ate the crackers and rolls that were served with the soup. There was a reporter from the newspaper taking pictures, and they were in the newspaper yesterday!

7. Paul called me last night during choir rehearsal. Normally I wouldn't take a call then, but I knew it had to be important for him to call me then. I came home right away when he told me Oliver's stent came out (7-9 days before it was supposed to come out). It was still attached to him by a stitch, but it was hanging outside his body. When I got home I called the hospital and the urology resident on call called me back a few minutes later. He talked with Dr. Canning and then called me back and told me to snip the threads, put a diaper on Oliver, give him fluids, and see if he peed within an hour.

A few minutes later Dr. Canning called me, and he said I could call him back on his cell phone at any time during the night (even though he wasn't officially on call that night). He said that some urologists only leave the stent in for 7 days (he does 12-14). It would have been "disastrous" if it had been in for less than 48 hours, but he was hopeful that since it had been in for 5 days, it would be okay. They knew the snow storm was about to start and didn't think we could drive to Philadelphia safely in a snow storm. If he wasn't able to pee, then we were to take him to the local hospital, which also has a pediatric urologist, but Dr. Canning was hoping that wouldn't be necessary as he felt that someone else putting a stent in Oliver might do damage to the construction he did during the surgery last Friday. Oliver did not pee within the next hour. I called Dr. Canning back at 9:30pm, and he said to put Oliver to bed because if Oliver wasn't able to pee he would get very uncomfortable, and we'd be sure to know about it. The resident had said we had to take him to an ER if he didn't pee within one hour. I was glad I was able to talk directly to Dr. Canning. His diaper was wet this morning. Yahooo! We are thankful that he seems to be doing okay even though the stent came out too early. It sure is easier to change his diaper now! The bruising and swelling has also improved tremendously over the past 6 days. The worst is definitely behind us!

8. Yesterday we took a trip to a consignment shop, as they were having a 60% off sale. I got some great bargains on some winter clothes, shoes, snow boots, etc. for next year for Nadia and Ian. I got Ian one thing for now - a Superman hoodie. He has been wearing it round the clock since I bought it. They were supposed to dress up in what they want to be when they grow up for AWANA last night. For awhile Nadia has been saying she wants to be an artist when she grows up, so she wore s smock and had a couple of paint brushes in the pockets of her smock. Ian had been planning to dress up as a fire fighter, until I bought this hoodie. There was no talking him out of it, and I am sure he's not the only four-year-old to want to be a superhero when he grows up. :)