Happy Thanksgiving late and Merry Christmas early!

There’s so much updating to do! A month has passed, and it’s been a busy one. First, there was Thanksgiving in Missoula always a good time. Anne Marie and Thomas had the time of their lives. Someday, there will be more kids in our extended families, and those two will have to deal with not always being the center of attention, but right now they are the only kids on either side of our family in more than 20 years. They might as well enjoy it!

From Thanksgiving 2009

From Thanksgiving 2009

From Thanksgiving 2009

From Thanksgiving 2009

We also got to get to know Phil’s girlfriend a little better, although I called her by the wrong name for about 30 minutes, repeating it several times so I wouldn’t forget her name. Whatever I called her, she's very nice. :)

From Thanksgiving 2009

Then came December, both a really long and a really short month. The longest day was Dec. 2, Anne Marie’s surgery day. We got to the hospital at 6 a.m., and Anne Marie was a dream patient- happy, quiet and willing to do whatever the nurses wanted. Two hours later, she was out of surgery, and the doctor told us he couldn’t get the tube in the top of her tear duct, so he taped it to the outside of her eye. Then he said, “I don’t think we’ll leave it in for six months. We’ll probably have to take it out in six weeks.”
What?! He’s had kids. I can’t imagine why he would think a two-year old could go six weeks with something taped to the outside of her eye. Still, there was nothing we could do, so when she finally recovered from surgery, we got in the car and headed home.
In the van, I turned around to ask Anne Marie if she wanted ice cream, only to hear a huge scream and see a long piece of tubing hanging from the side of her eye. Her nose was bleeding and she was freaking out, yelling, “Get it out!” She had noticed something next to her eye and pulled it, just like anyone would do.
We drove to the doctor’s office and he patched it and told us she would have to have another surgery that day to either remove it or put it back in. I told him to take that sucker out, and that we’d hope that the probing was enough to clear the duct. He agreed and apologized. Anne Marie asked me to draw a frowny face on her patch. She wanted it off.

From eye surgery and random fun

Since she had eaten jello at the hospital, we had to wait until 6 p.m. so her stomach was clear again. The poor kid hadn’t eaten anything but those couple of bites of jello for more than 30 hours, but we had to just sit it out.
We went back in, and Matt and I went to the waiting room for what we thought would be a 15-minute procedure. Two hours later, she wasn’t out yet. Turns out, she pulled that tube so far that they couldn’t find a piece of it. Our doctor called another specialist to help, but they still never found it. To avoid tears running into where the piece might be, they put in another tube, but this time the specialist was able to help get it inside the eye. When she came out the first time, she looked fine. The second time, the eye was patched and when we took off the patch later, it looked like she’d been in a bar fight. The best part was the next day at day care, they took photos and made Christmas ornaments of them. Now we have an ornament on our tree that looks like a police photo for child abuse.

But, the tube is in now, and will remain in for 6 months. I’m not looking forward to having it taken out. Anne Marie takes the anesthesia well, but I don’t think any kid really wakes up well from being put under. Both times she spent about 20 minutes screaming, another 20 minutes sleeping, then about an hour of alternating crying and sleeping. Awesome.
All that junk, however, was two weeks ago. Since then, we’ve had a few ear infections, strep throat and other incidents that make it hard to get things done.
Now, however, we’re all well and ready for a fun Christmas. Things are looking up!