MRI

This morning found us trying something entirely new on the experience front—we were up early, sans breakfast, and traipsing over to Mott Children's Hospital so Calvin could have an MRI. Kids Calvin's age are usually given an MRI under general anesthesia, and it was that and not the procedure itself that had us skipping breakfast and spending umpteen hours at the hospital. The brand new Mott hospital is bright and clean and entertaining—a perpetual marble machine, a toy MRI machine on the anesthesia ward—but with the same great doctors, nurses, and staff they've always had. In fact, our fantastic pediatric anesthesiologist was rather taken with Calvin. She believed that he was mature enough to handle the MRI without the general anesthesia and was willing to give it a go. It worked.

No general anesthesia meant that we walked out of the hospital about ten minutes after the MRI was finished and went straight out for celebration pancakes. And it meant he wasn't groggy and had lots of energy, so we came home and played with dogs, and snow, and Legos, and umbrellas. And it meant that Jon and I were really, really, relieved. Time to breath easy again. And that all adds up to a great, great day.

It's a new dryer invention...he's drying Blanket

Iris (all spots, grace, and energy)

Ollie (cow ears)

Dressing the snowman!

And I call this "quiet moment with journal and dog"

life as we know it

Sometimes life seems so normal, so mundane, that I can't imagine anyone would want to see me write about it. Other times life is going by at such a dizzying pace that I can't find the time to sit down and write at all. The past few days have been a combination of both. And actually, if I'm honest, the real problem has been that I haven't taken any pictures. What? It's true. And a blog post without pictures just seems rather blah. Rather like a list of particulars.

Calvin and I have been scrapbooking a lot together lately—we're putting together a book of our Florida trip and reliving the memories together has been a lot of fun. We've all but closed up our exploration of the Maya and have moved on to the Aztecs. Calvin is plowing through the Math-U-See—he's reached the section on money and we've discussed getting him started with an allowance now that he can keep track of it, so that will be a new milestone to mark. There's been piano, and Lego play, and reading (about Walt Disney), and journaling, and lots and lots of fun with Iris.

Iris is really still our biggest happening. Adding a new dog to a home can be challenging, especially when there are already established pets present, but the transition with Iris has been delightfully smooth. She seems happy and comfortable—she's eating and playing (we might finally have a dog who will pay fetch with us!)—and her manners were already good when she arrived. For those things we need to work on she responds very quickly to praise and the occasional treat. It took only two nights for her to learn our "exile" command (the word we've used for years to banish the dogs from the kitchen when we cook or eat), she sits, she stays, she lays down, and she's getting the hang of leash walking. Still, we'll be enrolling in obedience classes in the next month or so to give her some practice time with Calvin (and Calvin some practice time with her).

We have tickets to see Sweet Honey in the Rock this week, and more books to sort at the library. One odd and rather time-consuming errand. Piano. Legos. We haven't played games in a while, so definitely some of those. We actually have snow on the ground and I'm hoping it will stick around for a while. I'd like a few chilly nights for building fires and snuggling in. This is life as we know it.

Iris

Our family has grown by four spotted feet.

Meet Iris.

Iris is a three year old Dalmatian.

A few weeks ago Iris was living in Chicago. Sadly, her mom could no longer take care of her, so Iris went to stay with a foster family in Indiana and was placed on the Dalmatian rescue list. We've often discussed adopting a third dog. It wasn't all that long ago that our house was home to three wonderful dogs. After we said goodbye to Diamond we weren't ready to think about bringing in anyone new, but a year or so later we started to talk about the possibility of adopting again. We knew we wanted a rescue—that seemed like the greatest way to honor Diamond's memory—and we started watching rescue lists. We thought about a greyhound, and we thought about a mix, but I have a soft spot for spots and I probably watched the Dalmatian list the closest. Still, it took a couple of years before the right personality popped up.

I responded to Iris's listing and spoke many times with her wonderful foster family. It was clear that they cared very much for her, and we were very lucky when they chose us to be her forever home. This morning they drove two and a half hours to meet us in a field half-way between our homes. It was a poignant exchange, with sadness in their goodbye but joy in our hello, and then our lives became four feet richer.

Iris spent the drive home sleeping, and the first afternoon in her new home exploring every nook and cranny before settling down in front of the warm fire. She gets along with our dogs, she ignores our cats, and she's already found the water dish, the "out" door, and the bed by the fire. She's making herself at home and settling in just fine, and that makes us very happy.

Valentines...it's the new Halloween

Who knew. Being members now of our local homeschooling group we have greatly enjoyed participating in the party rites of passage. First the Halloween party, then the holiday party, and now the Valentines party. I spent about a week planning different cards we could make by hand until, with several other things going on, I was forced to admit that we are free-time challenged. So yesterday we went shopping for cards, but that just served to make me lament our lack of crafting time even more. Calvin didn't really want to give cards with message like "you've been running through my mind" or "you make my heart go crazy", so we bought the simplest of the cards, which happened to be Disney's traditional characters saying things like "you're on the the right track, valentine" or a simple "happy Valentines Day".

And then, just like birthdays with their newly overflowing favor bags, Valentines Day is no longer about class cupcakes and simple cards, it's about the favors attached to said cards. I'm blown away, and that makes me feel old. Calvin opted for cute little heart erasers in Valentines colors, which I attached to the cards with a dab of hot glue. And with the ordeal of preparation over (not so much an ordeal since he loved every minute of it), we joined our group for an afternoon of cookie decorating, bingo playing, and card exchanging. We renewed our Halloween candy offer and even after keeping two pieces Calvin made $5 selling the rest to us.

It was fun.

Getting back to crafty

It's been a while, so after a few math sheets, some reading time, and a variety of errands, we decided to visit our craft supplies again. Calvin had a particular project in mind, one that he'd seen in a library book on the Aztecs (and you see us making our way through the classical American civilizations). With cardboard, construction paper, fake feathers, floss, one bamboo pole, scissors, tape (of various types), and glue (of various types), we constructed a fan thingy. Strangely the book does not go into any detail about what the fan thingy was for, it just suggested that we make one and Calvin thought that was a good idea. Since this was our first meeting with the Aztecs I'm hoping some of the other books we haven't yet read will tell us more.