Ear tubes, T-ball and a Visa 37

The title of this post sounds like the punch line to a really bad joke! But the reality is that it's a compilation of my day yesterday.

EAR TUBES

My day started at 3:12 this morning. How do I know this exact time? Because when I heard Emma's first whimpers I looked at my digital clock to see how long I got to sleep. (The answer to that question is about 3 hours) For about an hour I could keep her somewhat settled down by continuously placing her pacifier back in her mouth and snuggling her close. But a little after 4:00 she had had enough. I had her in my bed with me and she sat up and let out one of her temper tantrum screams. It could have gotten really ugly after that, and although the rest of the morning wasn't pretty, it could have been much worse. By about 6:00 I realized there was no rest for either of us and I took her down to watch Noggin.

Noggin, for those of you not in the know, is a television channel for small children. We got in an episode of Blue's Clues before Emma finally fell asleep from exhaustion. We had to be at the hospital by 7:30 and there was really nothing else for me to do so I put her in the car and we drove to Starbucks drive thru. Emma was still asleep when we got to the hospital.

She was so worn out that when I took her out of the car seat she never even woke up. She slept through her registration, getting her ankle bracelet and waiting in the holding room. She finally woke up a few minutes before the anesthesiologist came to talk to me about the procedure.

The anesthesiologist was a very nice man and very sweet to Emma. He talked to her for a while and then gently held his hands out to her inviting her to let him pick her up. She didn't turn from him so he took her and held her for a few minutes and handed her back. He stayed in our holding room and continued to talk to us and then about 5 minutes later he took her again to take her back to the OR room. As I walked away from her as she was being carried into the OR she just looked at me like "hey, where are you going?" I admit I was worried about them carrying her off screaming but it never happened.

I sat down in the waiting area and about 10 minutes later it was done and I got to go back to her. One nurse was holding her in a rocking chair and 2 other nurses were watching her. She had a look on her face like "Who are these people?" I took her and fed her part of a bottle she didn't take it very well, partly because she was kind of cranky from the gas and partly, the nurses told me, because it felt different for her to drink it without the pressure in her ears.

I took her home about 15 minutes later and although we had a cranky first hour she was great after that!

T-BALL

Last night was supposed to be Jenna's last T-ball game. There are 2 more but she will be in China. In any case, the game was cancelled due to a torrential rain we received yesterday afternoon so we went out to eat with my brother Kevin and his family instead.

Kevin also happens to be Jenna's T-ball coach. I know he's my brother, so I'm biased, but he is the best coach any of my children have EVER had! He is so patient with those kids and is always teaching them what to do. Jenna's good experience has largely been due to his coaching.

After we finished eating and were getting ready to go Uncle Kevin gave Jenna a medal and told her how glad he was to have her on his team.

Jenna in her uniform. Their team was the Outlaws.

Jenna last night after Coach Kevin (aka Uncle Kevin) gave her her medal.

Let me just say that Jenna is in love with her medal. We came home last night and she wore it until she went to bed and first thing this morning it was around her neck again. I think I'm going to have a hard time convincing her to leave it here when we leave for China tomorrow.

VISA 37

Yes, my Visa 37 had to be revisited. And lucky, lucky me got to marathon call the National Visa Center last night too!

I thought it was a done deal when I got my "official" forms stating that my Visa 37 had been sent and that my fingerprints don't expire until September 26, 2009. I thought this until Betsy from the CCAI travel department called me about 5:00 last night and told me that just because I had that form didn't necessarily mean that it was sent.

UGH!!!! I had to call again and see if it was sent.

I have to say that I have learned since my experience last week that its really pointless to call the NVC during the day. I did call several times last night from 6:00-8:00 with no luck. But when I called last night about 9:45 I got through to another wonderfully pleasant woman who told me that my Visa 37 was sent that very same day!!! Yeah!!!! And she even seemed happy and excited about it too when I told her "thank you, thank you!" since I was leaving Thursday!

So today is devoted to finishing packing, picking up a few odds and ends and trying to get to bed a little early since we leave the house tomorrow about 4:00 am.