Happy Birthday to Gaga!

As many of you know, my birthday is in September. Most years, I trek home and spend a week or so with family and friends, which we did this year! We packed up the Prius and hit the road on Thursday evening after work and made it about half way before I crashed. Well, figuratively. I got sleepy. We we camped at the Red Roof Inn (spare no expense!) in Roanoke. Richie had a fund time looking for cows and water towers. I was enjoying 50+ MPG. :)

As is usual with these trips, they tend to be complicated scheduling-wise. But this trip seemed to be coming together okay. We stopped by Oma's house on the way in and had dinner with Richie's "godfather" as he was getting ready to drive back to Florida. Then we went on to Papa-Nat and Honey's (PN&H) house. We passed out shortly after arrival, as you might imagine. We had breakfast the next morning and then went back to Oma's house where we met up with a friend of mine, Peggy. After lunch, we did a little shopping and headed back to PN&H's house. That evening, we held a little (traditional) Emory reunion party. PN&H already had dinner plans, so we enjoyed the porch and the night weather with our friends.

Sunday, we PN tried to make pancakes. Following the tradition from Mama, he put MnM's in some of them. (Num-n-num's as Richie likes to call them.) He apparently had some difficulties but Richie thought they were the yummiest thing he had the entire trip. He talked about the yummy pancakes with num-n-num's for the rest of the trip. That afternoon, we met Oma, cousin Beth and her family out at my sister's house. PN&H joined later that evening when Ninia (my sister) and her family returned from their activities. PN told me he had a mild headache that he had had for a couple of days by that point. I told him to take two adult aspirins, drink a can of regular coke and call me in the morning. He did all of that a felt a little better.

That night we celebrated my birthday, and much of everyone's dismay, I conjured up something I had been thinking about for about a year. Like I alluded to above, I sing some pretty silly songs to Richie at night. One of them is a rhyming song to the tune of Hush Little Baby and Richie comes up with most of the rhymes. One of them is "Pizza-Bun." We get to that rhyme several times a week and each time I think to myself, "What a great idea! A hamburger with pizza as a bun!" So, for my birthday, that's what I ate. And my cousin Connor who thought it was the best thing ever! Granted he's a teenage, but still! The rest of the family ate either pizza or hamburgers. (Or, actually, turkey burgers.)


It was YUMMY!

Richie and Eli getting ready to eat my cake.


Making my wish...


Look! My wish came true!!


The following day, I get a concerned call from Honey who said that Papa-Nat still had a head ache and felt "Vague." After chuckling, I said, well, I don't know what to do with "vague" but maybe he should go to the ER and get a scan of his head. He didn't want to, of course, and he already had an appointment with his PCP around 4p. I told Honey to have PN stand, with his arms out in front of him, palms up, and shut his eyes. This is a quick test for stroke called a pronator drift test. He passed, in that his arms did not drift down. I said, we'll he's not likely having a stroke, but if he changes at all from where he is now, he should go right to the ER.

Oma, Richie, Mama and I went to the Georgia aquarium that day...




Hug break!


This picture of his hair will be important in a little bit...




Richie did NOT like the land-dolphin. He's okay with them when they're in the water, but not out on dry land.


Please tell Eli that there IS an albino alligator at the Georgia aquarium!


A gator is going to eat my baby!!!! NO!!!




Kiss!


That evening, the "vacation" would change. PN's PCP sent him right to the ER for a CT of his head which showed an acute-on-chronic subdural hematoma. The only trauma we can think of is a little fender bender PN was in while visiting NY in August where he poped the right side of his head on the roof based support-handle in the back seat. The bleed was on the left side making it a contra coup injury, not terribly uncommon. He must have started bleeding again just before I arrived and, the two aspirins I gave him did not help. Ironically Beth had said something about that and I totally blew it off because he had had not recent head trauma and it was just TOO silly to entertain. Alas...she was right.

PN landed in the neuro ICU and started slowly degrading. His drift test became positive the next morning. They neuro surgeons were talking about taking him to surgery possibly on Tuesday, but he got bumped. He continued to worsen and ultimately lost use of his right arm and leg with the left facial droop. Very classic. They finally took him to surgery Thursday. When he returned to the ICU, I asked him how he was feeling. He said, "Much much better. Check this out!" And he threw both of his arms into the air! It was great relief. They discharged him Sunday, but he started having shaking chills that evening, so he bounced back into the ER. They did another CT and gave him some oral antibiotics and sent him home. It was so late by the time we got released, I was too tired to drive home. By the time I realized that, Honey and Aunt Shana were sleeping upstairs and PN and I slept in the guest room. Well, actually, he slept for two hours and I listened to him snoring. It was impressive! I finally went and slept on the couch for a few hours.

NP is still recovering, but doing pretty well. His slurred speech and word-finding difficulties seemed to have resolved and now he's working on getting back his strength.

So, we ended up staying in Atlanta for an extra week and, although I haven't actually calculated the mileage, I think I doubled it from all of the driving back and forth from Douglasville to Atlanta.

The saga aside, here are some other shots from the trip. There are actually more that are still on the camera, too...




We saw this Giant Caterpillar crawling toward the house. No idea what it was going to turn into, but I'm sure it is going to be something large! I immediately thought of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.


On the way back, Richie started asking what was in each 18-wheeler. We asked him want he thought was in them. Almost everyone was apparently carrying, "Yummy Lollipops!" A few were carrying underwear and pantyhose (that's a little complicated to explain but it has to do with other funny nighttime song I sing...yes, it's complicated).

Full disclaimer:


Oh, and although it was more challenging than I originally thought it would be and more than just a trim, we finally did what Richie had been asking us to do for weeks....

Making up for lost time....

I'm trying to start catching up. I'll leave text for later cause ML and Richie are on their way back from the aquarium!

As part of the summer reading program, Richie won seats to an O's game, again. Now, these seats are way up in the nose bleeds, so we usually find a few empty seats closer (there are tons!). We've seen this guy every time we've gone to a game. He's the hardest working beer-guy there is!


Hanging out in the stands. I love the expression on the face of the kid in front of Richie...


I think something interesting is happening and I'm facing the wrong way!


Just to give you an idea of where we were sitting.


My friend Kiki had another big birthday party for her boy Christopher. It was a pirate theme and so Richie got dressed up! He already had the hair for it. Yes, I guess this post is a little "back in time" since the hair is now gone!



A move from earlier this summer where Richie is actually pushing Mama!


Here is a movie Richie at the Birthday party. This was the first time he really did a slide by himself, a lot. (Yes, I keep say "movie" for Grandma's sake.)


This movie proves that my son is already smarter than the Bush family.


This cute movie is from Omee's visit earlier this summer.


This is a movie from the hurricane we had at the end of the summer. ML and I finally got the city to pick up the sand bags last week.


Here is a movie of Richie helping Mama to put pillows in cases. This is a new talent for the boy.

Passed!

Okay, there is a ton of stuff I need to post. But I thought I'd share this, first: I passed my written board exam! Only one more board exam left...

Getting back...

So I took my Written board exam on Friday. It could have been better and it could have been worse. We'll know more in a few weeks....

It was nice getting to spend time with Richie again, although I had to moonlight all Saturday morning. Mama decided that Sunday, the Y chromosomes in the house were going to go spend the day at the Science Center. ML had been taking him there when I was at home for long stretches studying. About two weeks prior to the exam, Richie was getting very upset with all of my studying and would stomp around saying, "No study! No study!" It was heartbreakingly funny. He has really started investigating much more of what the center has too offer. So, when she announced that the boys were having a day together, I was a bit apprehensive. But, after a considerable amount of gentle fussing, I relented. I'm a DOCTOR, after all! We left just before it opened and they were doing big bubbles outside. Richie wanted to do that, so we spent our first 50 minutes doing that. I got more comfortable, because I realized that, although I can only understand like a 1/10 of what he says, it's very clear what he wants to do! So, after bubbles we went inside to see a planetarium show...he LOVES the planetarium! I'm hopeful I'll be able to take him to the one at Fernbank, where I went to magnet school. I actually did my own presentation in the planetarium as part of my astronomy class! I don't remember much about it other than it was one the various shapes of galaxies. But I know I did one!

Other than studying A LOT, since the last post, we did visit with some friends of my from Boston. They've been featured here before, so you may recognize them! Their daughter has really grown, so you may not recognize her.

Oh! Richie also won his group in the summer reading program and got tickets to the aquarium and O's, so we did that, too! Don't remember if that was in the last post or not, but you'll see some pictures of that, too.

This is just a cute picture we took of Richie the other day. We changed phone service and now we have smart phones and I was trying to get a cute one for Mama's background. Oh, by the way, Richie understand the word "background" and uses it whenever he can!


Just come other cute pictures from a "good" hair day. Richie has started asking us to cut it, and we will likely cut it next week and donate it to Locks of Love. So enjoy it while you can! (Yes, I will be keeping a curl.)


As part of the Baltimore Gran Prix, which apparently went better than expected, several of the museums were open for free so Mama and Richie took the opportunity to go to the B&O railroad. Maybe she'll log-in and add some more detail as to what we're looking at. I, of course, was studying. Or, maybe, actually at work.




Another thing that recently happened is I won a Woot-off and got a random bag of crap. This is the crap, and I must say, it is far crappier than the crap I won last time, which was two years ago. Back then I won 6 iPod nano clones from Sansa. 5 of which actually worked. And a bunch of lesser crap. This time it was just lesser crap.


This was exciting! When ever we have warning that poopies may be coming we ask if Richie wants to use his potty. He usually says no, except for one time. Yes, I have a picture, but probably won't be posting THAT one. This time he said, "Big Potty?" so here we are. Since then we got a little insert. But no success yet. Baby steps!


This was at he aquarium. We saw this big snake in a tree and we were desperately trying to get him to look at the snake hidden in the tree, but he did not understand how to follow the imaginary line from our hands. So, in a moment of "brilliance" I took the camera and zoomed in really close and showed him the snake on the screen. Then I zoomed back so he could see it was in the tree. You could practically see the light bulb going on over his head!


Bubble tubes are still a BIG hit.


This is just at the entrance. I think this is a set of teeth from a shark that lived back in the dinosaur era.


Ans here are our friends the Coelho family and their daughter Julia!



I'll try to post more later if I have time.....

I just checked. I think I am caught up with the pictures that are on the camera. I know I'm way behind on the movies, but that take considerably longer to do, so it will have to wait unfortunately.

Should have asked me...

Don't know why she didn't ask me how to spell it. Clearly it's spelled Beynis. Just like Fred Beynis, the famous Hispanic accordion playing rock soloist! How does she not know this?
EG

As you may remember, Richie started naming some of his toys. Just a few, but the names he has picked are very imaginative! I think Elliott has introduced Grellow and XYZ already. A couple of weeks ago I got Richie out of bed and he was goofing around with the growth chart in his room and singing something about a giraffe. Then I realized that he was saying Guillory the Giraffe in the song. I asked him who Guillory the Giraffe was and he pointed to the stuffed giraffe in his bed and told me it was THAT giraffe as if I should have KNOWN that! I picked up the giraffe and held it toward him and asked him if this was Guillory. Yep. ;-)

Back at Passover Richie and I went to a kids thing at School 22 on Light Street where one of the synagogues from north of the city has set up a Hebrew school. They have kids things for the different holidays. They had a game set up for the plagues that were visited upon the Egyptians and apparently they could not find plastic locusts (go figure) and so they just had a bunch of bugs. Richie became enamored with a pretty realistic-looking caterpillar and one of the teachers told Richie he could take him home. The other day Richie gave it a name. Mind you he has had this thing since Passover. I do not know how to spell it, but phonetically it is /bee EYE ness/. Yes, /bee EYE ness/! And /Bee EYE ness/ is male. Richie told me so. I keep wanting to call it Beyonce. Where did he get THAT name?!? Who knows?
Please welcome /Bee EYE ness/!-MaryLee

Some day

I'm studying for my next board exam which is less than a month away. Probably won't post until after September 9th. We're all okay, otherwise. Here are some pictures from July...