Cars, Pools and Poppy

Elsie had tubes put in her ears yesterday and came through like the champion she is. After so many painful ear infections (and the intestinal distress that comes with the accompanying antibiotic course) we all agreed it was the best thing to do. It sure was for Declan – hopefully hers will prove as successful.

It was a fair amount of waiting at the hospital, and all on an empty baby stomach as ordered, so we had to distract her. Her favorite part was riding on the little push-car.



She won over all the other parents and grandparents there with her smile. Which is cuter in focus. Sorry, the camera phone doesn’t do so great in low light…

I guess she won over most of the parents. There was that one dad who was barking into his cell phone about the load of mason dirt I done had in my truck all goddman weekend and now what in hell'm I gon’ do widdit? In the surgery waiting room at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters. Classy.

The surgery itself took only about five minutes. Amazing. Kaleigh helped immensely by rallying early in the morning to get Declan ready and off to school while we took the E to the hospital. 6:00am is especially early when you’re 19. But she did it happily.

She’s also painting the kitchen for us right now – looks great. Will get photos soon.

It’s been crazy hot here. Africa hot. Literally record-breaking. Which means we can’t do much outside but play in the pool and sprinkler.



By the way, in that one above you can see the car Kaleigh just bought in the background. Styling and profiling.



But even the water stuff can only go for an hour or so before people begin to pass out. So we’ve been trying to stick close to the air conditioning – house, car, restaurant, library, etc.

Last night we started what will hopefully become a new family tradition for summer nights. After bath we went on a Pajama Walk – an evening stroll through the neighborhood with PJs on (after the heat has dropped to a more manageable 95 degrees…) ‘Twas great.

Hey, Declan has a new friend! Poppy is sometimes a large man with pink hair and ten legs, and sometimes he’s a pink dinosaur. Declan often says he wants to see him when he’s sad or hurt.

As in: Declan bumps his head then calls out, “Ouch! I wanna see Poppy!”

So if you see Poppy walking around, ask him to make sure to check in regularly with Declan to make sure the little guy’s okay.