Day +1453: Happy Birthday to Mina! And a speedy recovery from the second surgery
Our girl is 6! Sunday was the big day, and we all had a great time. We had a modest affair that started at our house with playtime, lunch with bagel faces and tomato soup (Mina's choice), and birthday cake. Around mid-afternoon we migrated over to Grattan Playground. We counted 15 kids that were present at one time or another during the afternoon. It was a "dropoff" party, so some of the adults stayed but some of them just left their kids and enjoyed the afternoon. Mina had been planning for weeks how she wanted the party to go. She said she had a lot of fun except there weren't enough kids there. Then she proceeded to list all the kids she had invited but who didn't come. She was very cute all day. She is definitely comfortable in the limelight, and she loved being the birthday princess. But she is also very poised and gracious.
We were all sweltering during the party because it was in the 80s in San Francisco. The sand was so hot at the playground that none of the kids wanted to go in it. Mina played in the shady part with some of her friends while the boys went to the grassy field to play baseball. Our kids are so not used to the heat. They were both red-faced and sweaty. We finally broke out the hose back at the house and let the kids cool off by running through a stream of clear, cool, Yosemite Valley water. Our apartment gets pretty miserable when it's like this -- it's directly under a black tar roof and of course it has no AC. Luckily this only happens a couple of times a year. It stayed hot for several days before the weather broke on Thursday and it got back to its usual low 60s.
Grandma Judy and Grandpa Monte were here to help celebrate Mina's birthday. They arrived Thursday and left Tuesday. The kids always enjoy seeing them and vice versa. Isaac woke up Monday morning and declared that he was *not* going to go to school. So Grandma and Grandpa took him on a walk to the Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park. Later they all went to Baker Beach to beat the heat. Grandpa said they never sat down, and in fact they never left the waves. They spent two hours running around in the sand and playing tag with the waves under Grandma and Grandpa's watchful eye. Baker Beach is just outside the Golden Gate but still in a spot that's a little bit sheltered so it doesn't tend to get the really giant waves like Ocean Beach does. It's a beautiful spot, looking across the Golden Gate at the Marin Headlands, and I wish I could have joined them. But I was stuck in the office, of course.
Mina had her second eye surgery on Tuesday. It had been scheduled for a few weeks ago, but she had the sniffles that day and they postponed it as a result. It's pretty funny that they would cancel a surgery over a stuffy nose given all that she's been through, but it makes sense since the surgery is totally elective. The surgery went well. She definitely went into this one with her eyes wide open, so to speak. She knew that the eyedrops were going to be uncomfortable and fought them like crazy. But she also knew that the anasthesia and the operating room were nothing to be scared of, so she was smiling and talking in instead of burying her head in my shoulder as I carried her in. She woke up a little hard from the anasthesia this time, and wasn't really herself until she napped after coming back from the hospital. She also started asking us to put her contact in right away. She apparently could still see reasonably well out of her left eye despite the cataract, because she was never that motivated to have her contact in. Now with the patch over her left eye she wants the contact in all the time, and in fact she complains if I want to take it out at night while I am still reading books with pictures. She really can't see the pictures even when they are a few inches away. But her vision is corrected to 20/40 with her contact, which her opthamalogist is happy about. She'll wear the stiff eye patch until Sunday, and the doctor says she can go back to jumping rope on Monday.
The other health news about Mina Brigitta is that her thyroid function is pretty low. It's always been a bit below average, but it is now falling to the very edge of the "normal" range. The endocrinologist recommended putting her on thyroid medicine. She said it's not critical since Mina is showing absolutely no symptoms of thyroid problems, but the expectation is that she will need to go on the medicine eventually so might as well start now. The medicine is very well tolerated with no side effects and there is lots of literature about very long-term use, so there doesn't seem to be any downside to it. Dr. Reid said we could either start her now or wait six months and check again. I always hate to think about the ways that Mina's life will be different from what it should have been, but there's not much to be done about it now other than make the best of it. We haven't decided what to do yet, but it seems likely that she will be on the medicine for the rest of her life.
The kids have been very cute lately again. Isaac went through a very rough patch after Mina transferred to Grattan. Teacher Julie says he almost acts like a kid with a food allergy, that there is something that is keeping him from totally relaxing, so he's always on edge a bit and can't fully engage. It could be the changes at the school, combined with Mina's surgeries. Grandpa said Isaac had an interesting reaction at the beach whenever Mina ran down the beach toward the water -- his body would tense up and he would make little squeaking sounds, which he said were to keep Mina safe. He's a bit of a worrier, and he's had some stuff to be worried about lately. Julie says he really hasn't made much progress since the fall, and he definitely won't be ready for kindergarten next year. But lately things have been better -- he and Mina have been getting along better, and he has been more relaxed and more himself at school. Julie says he has a hard time keeping up with the older boys and there aren't really any other boys that are just his age. But he is very sweet to the younger boys and they really look up to him. He can definitely be a very sweet boy and he has a strong sense of justice -- not just what's fair for himself but what's right and wrong for others. But when he's tired or anxious he can lapse into attention getting behaviors that are not very fun to be around. One thing Julie recommended was more father-son time, like taking him to a baseball game or the symphony just the two of us. I think that sounds great and I fully intend to follow her advice!
We were all sweltering during the party because it was in the 80s in San Francisco. The sand was so hot at the playground that none of the kids wanted to go in it. Mina played in the shady part with some of her friends while the boys went to the grassy field to play baseball. Our kids are so not used to the heat. They were both red-faced and sweaty. We finally broke out the hose back at the house and let the kids cool off by running through a stream of clear, cool, Yosemite Valley water. Our apartment gets pretty miserable when it's like this -- it's directly under a black tar roof and of course it has no AC. Luckily this only happens a couple of times a year. It stayed hot for several days before the weather broke on Thursday and it got back to its usual low 60s.
Grandma Judy and Grandpa Monte were here to help celebrate Mina's birthday. They arrived Thursday and left Tuesday. The kids always enjoy seeing them and vice versa. Isaac woke up Monday morning and declared that he was *not* going to go to school. So Grandma and Grandpa took him on a walk to the Botanical Garden in Golden Gate Park. Later they all went to Baker Beach to beat the heat. Grandpa said they never sat down, and in fact they never left the waves. They spent two hours running around in the sand and playing tag with the waves under Grandma and Grandpa's watchful eye. Baker Beach is just outside the Golden Gate but still in a spot that's a little bit sheltered so it doesn't tend to get the really giant waves like Ocean Beach does. It's a beautiful spot, looking across the Golden Gate at the Marin Headlands, and I wish I could have joined them. But I was stuck in the office, of course.
Mina had her second eye surgery on Tuesday. It had been scheduled for a few weeks ago, but she had the sniffles that day and they postponed it as a result. It's pretty funny that they would cancel a surgery over a stuffy nose given all that she's been through, but it makes sense since the surgery is totally elective. The surgery went well. She definitely went into this one with her eyes wide open, so to speak. She knew that the eyedrops were going to be uncomfortable and fought them like crazy. But she also knew that the anasthesia and the operating room were nothing to be scared of, so she was smiling and talking in instead of burying her head in my shoulder as I carried her in. She woke up a little hard from the anasthesia this time, and wasn't really herself until she napped after coming back from the hospital. She also started asking us to put her contact in right away. She apparently could still see reasonably well out of her left eye despite the cataract, because she was never that motivated to have her contact in. Now with the patch over her left eye she wants the contact in all the time, and in fact she complains if I want to take it out at night while I am still reading books with pictures. She really can't see the pictures even when they are a few inches away. But her vision is corrected to 20/40 with her contact, which her opthamalogist is happy about. She'll wear the stiff eye patch until Sunday, and the doctor says she can go back to jumping rope on Monday.
The other health news about Mina Brigitta is that her thyroid function is pretty low. It's always been a bit below average, but it is now falling to the very edge of the "normal" range. The endocrinologist recommended putting her on thyroid medicine. She said it's not critical since Mina is showing absolutely no symptoms of thyroid problems, but the expectation is that she will need to go on the medicine eventually so might as well start now. The medicine is very well tolerated with no side effects and there is lots of literature about very long-term use, so there doesn't seem to be any downside to it. Dr. Reid said we could either start her now or wait six months and check again. I always hate to think about the ways that Mina's life will be different from what it should have been, but there's not much to be done about it now other than make the best of it. We haven't decided what to do yet, but it seems likely that she will be on the medicine for the rest of her life.
The kids have been very cute lately again. Isaac went through a very rough patch after Mina transferred to Grattan. Teacher Julie says he almost acts like a kid with a food allergy, that there is something that is keeping him from totally relaxing, so he's always on edge a bit and can't fully engage. It could be the changes at the school, combined with Mina's surgeries. Grandpa said Isaac had an interesting reaction at the beach whenever Mina ran down the beach toward the water -- his body would tense up and he would make little squeaking sounds, which he said were to keep Mina safe. He's a bit of a worrier, and he's had some stuff to be worried about lately. Julie says he really hasn't made much progress since the fall, and he definitely won't be ready for kindergarten next year. But lately things have been better -- he and Mina have been getting along better, and he has been more relaxed and more himself at school. Julie says he has a hard time keeping up with the older boys and there aren't really any other boys that are just his age. But he is very sweet to the younger boys and they really look up to him. He can definitely be a very sweet boy and he has a strong sense of justice -- not just what's fair for himself but what's right and wrong for others. But when he's tired or anxious he can lapse into attention getting behaviors that are not very fun to be around. One thing Julie recommended was more father-son time, like taking him to a baseball game or the symphony just the two of us. I think that sounds great and I fully intend to follow her advice!
posted by Arne Olson @ 10:01 PM
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