John did great and is already walking around. He should hopefully get out of the hospital tommorrow. I am completely and utterly exhausted. Story and pix to follow tommorrow. Bed. Now.

And thanks to everyone for your good thoughts, prayers, and well wishes. Night.

The hospital called and let us know that not only are we a go for the surgery, but that it will be at 7am instead of 10am tommorrow. That means that John has to be at the hospital at 5am- and up at 4am! Not liking that much and it kinda threw a wrench in the whole plan for the day. But now it’s straightened out and John’s parents are driving him to the hospital at 4:30am. My mom is coming around 7am and then I am leaving for the hospital to wait and visit. My mom will be taking care of the boys all day including all school drop offs, pick ups and stuff. So if you are keeping a good thought for John, keep a good one for my mom too! She’s gonna need it.

John dosen’t seem particularly nervous about tommorrow, but I am (it’s that Jew worrying gene- can’t escape it). I keep reminding myself that this surgery is cake compared to the last back/neck surgery he had where they removed the disc, fused his spine with bone from his hip. That area was a lot more dangerous to work in and this time they are not fusing or anything. They are just supposed to remove the bulging part of the disc to get it off the nerves- which is what is causing all the pain. I just hope it works as well as last time (he had no more pain as soon as waking from surgery- incision pain, but no neck,back, radiating down the arm pain) and that the recovery is as fast as they are saying it should be. If you are the praying type, please send one up for us tommorrow. Thanks.

Today was totally nuts, trying to get everything settled before tommorrow. But it’s almost all done (just a few more to-do’s on the list before I can go to bed).

Timmy had his psychological evaluation today and it was very interesting. The psychologist said she sees some indications of low muscle tone (ummm…hello Jack & Patrick) and he definitely needs help with articulation. She asked if he was always this happy and easy going- yup! His vocabulary was in the 99th %tile (that we knew!), and his general IQ was on the very high end of average. His self-care skills were in the average range. She did see some things that warrant an OT (occupational therapy for fine motor skills) evaluation too. So, this all really means nothing except that we now proceed to the next steps: Speech evaluation on Friday and OT evaluation on Saturday. It’s kinda good that she wants him evaluated for both as if you are trying to qualify for one service, you need a 33% deficit in that area, but if you are trying to qualify for two services, you only need a 24% deficit. And she’s going to leave it up to the OT to see if he needs a PT (physical therapy for gross motor skills) evaluation too. I am so hoping he qualifies and can get the services NOW to get this done. The only issue (well, other than getting approval for services) is going to be the scheduling of appointments. They are so busy at this facility. When I went with the boys we started PT and OT at 7:30am 2x a week. *(and yes, we did make it on time every time even at that hour!). Obviously, I can’t do that now so I don’t know when they will be able to fit us in. One step at a time though.

Here are two of Timmy from today-one in the laundry basket (don’t ask) with his new Buzz Lightyear trains from Uncle Nelson. I know there are far more pix of him than of the boys, but he’s with me all day and they are at school so he gets stuck being my subject. Better on the focus here. Still practicing. And I think I’m bringing the camera to the hospital tommorrow, too! 

Trying to cram everything in before John’s surgery on Tuesday. Not going to be easy, and not going to happen, but I’m still gonna try.

Had a photoshoot this morning for some "extra" christening pictures. That should be on the blog later this week. Be on the lookout.

Hit the stupidmarket to get in the shopping for the week. Still need to go to the deli and CVS tommorrow, as well as the pediatrician to drop off forms, scrapbook class, Timmy’s first evaluation. Usually there is religion tommorrow too, but it was thankfully cancelled. One less thing and all.

Spent over an hour in the camera store yesterday afternoon (had to escape the house for a little bit. I so need winter to be over-getting cabin fever and so are all the boys). John said some people escape to a bar, but I go to the camera shop. That’s pretty accurate. I’m really not feeling the improvement in my photography that I think I should- on the focus end of things mostly. So I went in there for a little encouragment and advice. I got both and am going to be doing some additional practicing with some new ideas and tools. Which I’m soooo sure the boys will just be thrilled about. It’s all me-not the camera, not the lenses. Just me. Focus, focus.

I worked for a few hours this afternoon. It’s an on again/off again gig at a Test prep place. I give practice SAT’s or ACT’s and the like to the students and grade them. It’s really a great little job. Very convenient and easy. And I’ve been working on and off for the Professor who owns and runs the place for almost 10 years now. He’s a great boss and brilliant beyond brilliant. He will be tutoring my boys for their SAT’s eventually, even if I can’t afford him.

Drove John’s new car all day today and I really liked it. Can you say LUXURY vehicle? My favorite parts are the way it drives (tight, quiet, and cush), the ipod direct hookup (you know I was blasting Amy Winehouse!), and the way the trunk opens and closes with a touch of a button. Plus the fact that it’s a Mercedes is pretty cool in itself. And best of all, I didn’t crash it.

Leaving you with some pictures I took of Timmy last weekend. Found this cool grey wall/stairs and the red & green doors over by a party that Timmy went to. Always on the lookout for some good new locations. He wasn’t particularly thrilled with the balloons but Uncle Nelson met us there and really helped out. He even made a really good save once and caught the balloons just as Timmy let go. Used some textures and frames from Pink Ink Studios that my friend Maureen bought me back on my birthday. The pictures were of him turning 3, although a few weeks late.  

First, you may ask, what is a birthday vegetable? Well, we were telling Timmy that the party was part of his 3 week long birthday festival (we celebrated his birthday at Disney too- several times). When he said "no, it’s not my birthday vegatable". Yeah, good thing he’s getting evaluated for articulation this week, huh? Gotta love it though! I hope that if he does qualify, they won’t take stuff like ‘birthday vegetable’, ‘alidrator’ (refridgerator), etc. away. Anyway…

Here are a ton of pictures from Timmy’s party which started out as a Buzz Lightyear party with Buzz invitations made at home by me. But then somewhere along the way, Buzz was out and Superman was in. So a Superman party it was. There were only about 18 kids invited, with 15 kids there. If you’ve been to any of Jack & Patrick’s parties, you know this was a very very small party for us. They usually have around 70 kids invited, with 50-60 showing up. But there are not a lot of my friends with kids Timmy’s age so things got smaller. But he had a great time with all his friends.

As for the clothing…totally Timmy’s choice. When I asked him the night before the party, what he wanted to wear for his birthday party, he told me "a tie". So, there you go. Super cute and very formal at the Rec Center. It only lasted for a little while though. Then the nice white shirt was covered in pizza & ice cream cake. Yum.

How is it that weather forecasts are NEVER accurate and yet all the forecasters still have jobs? If in any other line of work these people were as wrong as often as they are, they would be soooo fired. We were predicted to get 1-3" of snow. It ended up being about 7". Oh, so accurate. Still ,I would rather have been in Florida.

But the boys had some fun outside. Even though the time it takes to get everyone dressed and undressed from the snow gear is usually less time than they actually play outside. Uncle That Guy was kind enough to come over and shovel us out, build a great snowfort for the boys, and let them whack him with many snowballs. I do have to say that the boys aim is getting much better. As Uncle That Guy drove off (he told them they could hit the car as much as they wanted) they were pelting the car but good. Uncle That Guy opened the window to try to say something and Patrick actually threw the snowball right into the partially opened window. I think they may do really well at baseball this year.

And if you are wondering why Uncle That Guy is called Uncle That Guy…when Jack and Patrick were really little (like under 2) Thomas (aka Uncle That Guy) was walking up the path to come inside and the boys were standing at the front door waiting. I asked them "who’s that" and they said "that guy". So from that day on, he has been Uncle That Guy. And he apparently really likes being Uncle That Guy, so we never changed it.