Summer Fun - Weekend Nine



Well, this weekend started at the beginning of the week actually :)  I enrolled Tate in Zoo Camp for the week;  in the afternoons (1-4pm).  Thankfully I had a young man about to start dental school who was able to take and pick him up for me Monday and Tuesday;  my parents were awesome enough to do it for me Wednesday and Thursday.  Tate seemed to really enjoy Camp Zoofari.  For once in the evenings he told me a bit about his day at camp!  He did some great projects and saw some really cool animals.  He loved it.  There was only one blip in the camp.  On Tuesday evening at dinner he told me they watched a movie about dinosaurs that was really scary.  He told me he held his teacher's hand and took off his glasses and closed his eyes cause the dinosaurs were too big and too scary.  I asked him if he cried because he was scared and he said 'just a little Mommy.'  I felt a bit bad.  I've never taken Tate to the movie theater, and he's really not allowed to watch much television, and he's never seen a movie other than 'The Polar Express' and one simple Thomas the Tank Engine movie.  In fact his tv viewing is kept to 'Curious George', 'Thomas', 'Chuggington', 'Mickey Mouse Clubhouse' and that's it.  All very innocuous and quiet.  I was feeling a bit remiss in being so protective of what movies/shows I allow him to watch.  When we dropped him off on Wednesday I thanked his teacher for holding his hand during the movie.  As soon as I finished thanking her a father behind me asked me what Tate's name was;  I told him and he told his son "See Mack, Tate was scared too."  The teacher then interjected and said almost all the kids were scared.

Apparently they movie was the 4D Ice Age Experience!  The chairs moved and shook, the dinosaurs fought and were extremely loud and it was a bit much for the kiddos.  :)  Poor Tate...a 4D movie!!  No wonder he was horrified.  The teachers assured us there were no more movies and that the 'movie' was about 15-20 minutes long, and that many of the kiddos took off their glasses.  :)

Other than the dinosaur interlude Zoo Camp was a big hit!

Thursday my parents took him and picked him up.  I called at lunch time to see how he was doing (they picked him from daycare at 11, brought him home for lunch then went over to the zoo around 12:15).  My mom reported all was well, but that Tate's left eye was a little red, but he seemed fine.  She said he got poked in the eye at daycare with a stick.  In the background I heard my dad telling her "Don't worry her!  He's fine."  I filed the info in the back of my head and went about the rest of my day.

My dad dropped him off around 4:10.  I ran over to tell him hi before finishing my last patient of the day.  I then saw how red his eye was.  I looked closely and decided it did not look good, pain or no pain (he reported no pain).  The white of his left eye was raised in a few spots, like welts on the inner portion of the eye and it was really red.  I decided he needed to be seen.  I frantically tried to call the pediatrician and of course noone picked up right away.  In the meantime I picked up my cell phone and saw that my mom had left me a flurry of text messages complaining that her heart was racing and had been for 2 hours.  My dad had left her at my house while he picked up Tate, so he was on his way back to her when I read the messages.  She wanted to know what was the closest ER for when my dad got back.  I called her from my cell while on hold with the pediatrician's office and gave her the directions to the closest ER as well as trying to ascertain what was really going on (this has happened to her a few times before).  She seemed ok to wait for my dad, so I hung up with her.  I then decided to call my eye doctor whose office is just around the corner from my office.  They answered immediately and agreed to see Tate if I could get there ASAP.  I told them I had to finish my last patient but would be there before 5:30 when they closed, knowing that noone, noone wants to have a patient, emergency or not, walk in at 5:25 when they close at 5:30.  I left Tate happily playing with the trains in my office  and went back to work.  I had my office manager try to call my neighbor to go check on my mom, but he wasn't home.  At 5:05 I still had one filling left to do on my patient and our new associate doctor graciously agreed to finish my patient for me, so I could take Tate to the eye doctor.

He did pretty well for the exam.  They had him do a mini vision test of reading the letters.  He did quite well, but it was a tad confusing covering one eye etc.  Dr. O came in and looked in his eye and told me Tate was extremely lucky.  A millimeter or so over to the left and he would have poked himself in the eyeball.  He had several lacerations in his conjunctiva (the sclera or white of his eye), but he didn't think they were deep enough to warrant stitches.  STITCHES!!??  I never considered that he might need stitches.  He said had the lacerations or welts weren't detached from the sclera so no they weren't needed.  (blech!)  There was also some debris left in his eye that he wanted to try to remove.  He numbed Tate's eye with a numbing eye drop and tried to convince Tate to look to the left with his eyeball while he cleaned it off with a q-tip.  Yeah trying to convince a 4 year old to look one way while you come at him with a huge cotton ball (once it gets that close) wasn't happening in our world.  We then opted to try to flush it out with some saline solution.

Cue the crying and mayhem.  We both ended up soaked.  But it was done.

We were giving a prescription for an antibiotic ointment and given some rewetting drops and were finally on our way home at 6:30.  No swim lessons for Friday though.

We were both exhausted, so it was an early night.  Tate was a trooper and consistently said his eye didn't hurt!  I can't believe this doesn't hurt!

 And Tate was up at 4:55 on Friday morning!  :(  Seriously child...you are killing me :).  I insisted that he lay back down until 5:45 and then I handed him my phone to watch trains until 6:30.  I finally dragged my bum out of bed, did two loads of laundry, put together the chicken spaghetti for Friday night's dinner, washed my hair and got us dressed and into the car to leave at 10:20!

We were off to La Grange to pick up Miss Silke and Annabelle.  Tate fell asleep within minutes and slept almost 45 minutes!

They were in Austin visiting friends and we were doing a trade-off in La Grange with a little lunch!  It was so great to see them again.  We had some lunch and made our way back to Houston that afternoon.

We lazed about the house that afternoon and I ran out to get Tate's eye drop prescription;  he's been pretty good about me putting the ointment in his eye.

For dinner one of Silke's old friends form law school joined us...the chicken spaghetti was yummy, her friend brought a great salad, and there was a great bottle of wine.  For dessert we had vanilla ice cream with strawberries with a grand marnier topper...yum-o.

Tate fought going to sleep a bit, but was finally out by 8:15pm having been given very strict instructions that when his eyes opened in the am that he was to CLOSE HIS EYES AND GO BACK TO SLEEP!  He woke up at 5:40;  I don't think he ever went back to sleep even as I hissed at him to do so, but I dozed off for another hour before I gave in and got on up.  Two loads of laundry, breakfast, and getting to the two of us dressed we were ready for Annabelle and Silke to wake up and come join us for a rainy visit to the ZOO TRAIN!!!  Though it drizzled for much of the ride, Tate was super excited to show Annabelle 'his train'!

We ran by Star Pizza and got some pizzas for lunch as we were then headed over to my friend S's house to hang out and swim in her family's pool.  She's the mom of Tate's crush, Samantha.  Sadly Samantha and her dad were out of town, but Tate was delighted to play with her four year old daughter and her 9 year old son.  I had texted Stephanie earlier in the week and asked if we could come over and swim in the pool for a bit this afternoon, as she and her husband have repeatedly told me to "just come over anytime, we're always in the pool on the weekends!  Please come by and hang out!"  I opted to take them up on it!  Stephanie graciously offered to host and provide drinks...yum!  A few kir royals, some yummy pizza and lots of swimming for the kiddos and a great time was had by all!

Tate and Ila noodling around!

The Three Musketeers! 

Cutest 4 year olds ever...Tate and Ila!
They are both awesome swimmers!

Look at Tate just a-swimming away!

For the first time in a long time I was able to hang out in a pool with friends and not worry about anything.  My kid can pretty much take care of himself in the water, though he does enjoy me being in the pool with him.  I'm happy to hang out and float around and 'catch' him as he swims to me and play with him.  But as I lounged in the water I realized that I was able to truly relax and not worry about where I needed to be next, doing laundry, cleaning up or anything.  I could just be.  Oh the joy of having an older kid who's a bit independent!  I'm loving it!

After about 2 1/2 hours in the pool we came on home.   Though it wasn't as hot as it normally is (it was in the low 90s, high 80s) we were all worn out.  That's a long time to be out in the sun, in the water and drinking champagne :).  Tate watched a Thomas movie and I sat on the couch and  read a bit (and started this post! :) ).  Silke and Annabelle rested downstairs for a bit.  I had leftovers with Tate for dinner and Silke and Annabelle went out for dinner with a friend.   It's been a lovely day!

6:10 am!  My fantastic boy slept until 6:10 Sunday morning!  Which means I slept about 8 1/2 hours!  It was glorious!  Simply glorious!  We leisurely got up, had breakfast and ran out to the grocery store while Annabelle and Silke slept in.  Upon our return we made our way to the park, only able to stay about 10 minutes before the rain came on.

He adores Annabelle!

Such joy!  Love this boy!

We then introduced Annabelle and Silke to 'The French Fry Place!'

We were off to the Mad Potter after that to indulge in the kiddos' creative side!  Tate found something he wanted to paint thank goodness! :)

Of course we then took them to The Chocolate Bar!

And of course chocolate makes you want to dance!

We returned to the playground for another go, then headed home.  My neighbor was outside with his three kiddos and then our other neighbor came home (Tate's favorite neighbor...Uncle Ryan...married to sweet Kristen from my post Leaving.  It was the kind of afternoon I've always dreamed of when I thought about having kids...hanging out outside in a chair while my child(ren) ran around, riding bikes, chalking and having a great time while I sat back and watched them enjoy themselves. I was absolutely content.

Poor Annabelle was worn out from the day,
especially the Texas heat.  She's falling
asleep as Tate drives her around!

Sound asleep! :)

We brought the kids inside, got them some dinner, bathed them together (and they had a blast!) and got them into bed.  Tate absolutely adores Annabelle...it's so sweet.  He won't see her tomorrow as he and I will be off to work/daycare at our normal early time, and she'll still be asleep.  I told him to give her a hug good-bye after we got them in their pjs.  He ran over to her, arms wide open to hug her...this is something my little boy rarely does.  He's not a big hugger (except of me...which I LOVE!  I love Tate hugs), but he doesn't hug other people easily.  But Annabelle is a different story.  He was more than willing.  And all weekend whenever we were doing something he wanted to be sure she was right there or coming along soon.  It was so sweet to watch him making sure her seatbelt was on when they were riding in his little car.  I have such a sweet sweet boy!

Silke and I got to spend part of the evening catching up and hanging out before we both headed off to bed.  It's been a nice, relaxing, activity filled weekend.  I'll need the week to recoup :).  We've looked forward to their visit all summer, so I'm sure the rest of the summer will be a bit anti-climatic, but that's ok.  It's been a fun summer;  I truly hope Tate has enjoyed it.  I'm going to let him finish up with Gymnastics Camp this week...he'll go two more afternoons.  Then next week we'll get back to our usual daycare groove before he officially starts Pre-K!  

Ack!  Pre-K!  My little baby is going into Pre-K!  Where oh where has the time gone?