Tubey

 I love this little dude.  Every day, he becomes more and more of a person that I am proud to know.  I worry about him.  He's my little boy and he's been sick a lot.  He's had antibiotics coursing through his small body more than they should, he's not speaking as much as a 21 month old "should", and he's had six ear infections in about as many months.

He took a hearing test last month and it determined that he isn't hearing well and has fluid in his ears all the time.  The doctor said, "If you or I had fluid in our ears like this, it would drive us crazy".  So we scheduled surgery to get tubes.  The tubes are tiny and we were assured that the procedure would be super easy and have great results.

Of course, we were worried.  No parent wants to put their child under anesthesia for "elective surgery", but you also don't want the key time of language acquisition to be hampered by fluid in the ears.

And then I got my first ear infection that I have any memory of last week (kind of ironic timing).  The pain rivaled that of child birth (without drugs).  I tried ibruprofin, a decongestant, anything to relieve the pain.  In the end, I got put on my own course of antibiotics and was able to get relief from the pain.  However, a week later, I still have a clogged ear (perhaps because of a ruptured ear drum).  This whole experience made me more sure that tubes were the right call for our little snuggly, helper boy....

 

Yesterday, Hazey got his tube ins.  We were in and out of the hospital in 2 hours and he was a rock star through and through!  He charmed the ladies in the pre-op, made a speedy recovery in post op, and was up for going out to lunch with his mama afterwards. 

He didn't even need pain meds afterwards.  John's pretty sure that he's already speaking more clearly.  I'm not so sure about that, but I am certain that he's a great patient and we are all relieved to have this behind us.  Now, if only I could get my ears to unclog!

Williams Lake

 

 We hit the road to experience peak folliage all over again at our friend's place on Williams Lake in Rosendale, NY.  Tim and Sophia hosted us to an absolutely lovely weekend.  Their son Beckett is a year older than Cal and Iris is 2 1/2.  

Tim is working on developing an eco-friendly resort on the lake and it's 800 acres.  We explored the old limestone caves, fished, saw red ephs, went to a farm, and just played a lot.

Chebegue Island, ME

I can't think of a better reason to drive down to Portland after school on a Friday and schlep our kids and gear on an hour long ferry ride (which left the dock at 9:30pm) to Chebegue Island in Maine.  Our dear friend, Alex turned 50!

Hazen was fired up on the late ferry, but Cally slept the whole way.

We spent some quality time combing the beach:

 

And swinging with an incredible backdrop:

Playing croquet

And taking a beautiful boat trip back to Portland:

The kids were pooped as we drove back to Vermont on Sunday afternoon:

September.... It's a wrap!

I think things are finally getting back to "normal after a rocky start to the academic year.  Hazen has been healthy, and more importantly, happy.  Cally is well into the groove of school, making friends, and really growing up right before our eyes.  John and I have been able to go to work, catch up on sleep, and get a get into a sort of groove again.

We've take a lot of afternoon hikes with the kids:

Haircuts:

 Seeing a friendship blossom by the day

 The Harvest Market...... Which involved Mom running a 5K race, Cally walking in her first parade, and John volunteering as one of the best face painters that the Poker Hill tent has ever seen!

And one of the best parts of this past weekend, was stacking wood as a family.  Six years ago, on one of my first dates with John, he somehow convinced me to stack a cord of wood with him for fun.  It actually was kind of fun.  I'd never lived in a place where wood was the primary source of heat and sort of liked the feeling of working to make a house a home.  Over the years, stacking wood has become more of a chore or something to check off our family "to do" list.  We'd try to squeeze it in when the kids napped or with headlamps on after they went to bed.  But yesterday, John and I got our wood stacking attire on and Cally put on her "wood chucking" boots (thanks, Claire) because she insisted on helping us.  At 3 1/2 years old, Cally really did help us.  She found logs that were small enough for Hazen to "chuck" into the cart, she sang songs, and both of the kids really did make stacking wood fun again.

We also went on a lovely hike up Eagle Mountain in Milton with the family of John's student, Avi, who passed away in March.  I can't even imagine the loss that they feel, but they embraced our family and we had a lovely day together.