Light at the end of the tunnel

Valentine's Day ...

First one that we haven't gone out for a nice dinner since we started dating. I guess that is what happens when you have 2 kids - one with a broken leg and the other 6 weeks old. But we have romantic dinner plans for Thursday evening - let's see if we can keep them.

The past few weeks have continued to be trying times for us. Kay (Tania's mom) had her surgery last week. We were a bit too quick to proclaim it the extraordinary success that it appeared to be. She had pretty serious surgery for diverticulitis and was up and walking around within a day. But then suddenly after 48 hours she started experiencing irregular heartbeats and has been in a sort of middle ground ICU ever since to be closely monitored. While most of the feedback that I am getting seems to be that it is not uncommon to have the reaction that she had post a surgery and that they believe that they have ruled out a heart attack or pulmonary embolism - everybody is still a bit on eggshells and we are thinking of Kay often. Can't be very fun to be stuck in a hospital 3,000 miles from home and having post-op complications. But with 2 kids who are doctors at least she is getting lots of good advice and reassurance.

We continue to be blown away by the generousity and kindness of our fellow class parents. I called Tania on the way home from work to see if I could bring home fast food or sandwiches (classic Valentine's fare) and she informed me that one of the mothers from our co-op school had brought us a full meal. Was really nice.

Life with Andy is getting mildly better. He still isn't sleeping much so Tania isn't either. After 6 weeks I can no longer get up in the middle of the night or I wouldn't be able to function at work. So it is a bit of "ships passing in the night" but that is to be expected. On the positive side he has finally started smiling at us in the way that only babies can where their entire faces light up and you suddenly feel that the effort of the past several weeks has been worth it. I can't even imagine how Tania must feel as I have clearly only put in 10% of the level that she has had to put in. So there is light at the end of the tunnel as we know with each day his neck is getting stronger, his stomach growing bigger and his smiling and communication will only increase. But you can clearly tell in the picture that he is telling us not to worry - everything will be A-Okay! ;-)

Jacob is now running around with his cast as though it doesn't even exist anymore. Quite a change from only 2 weeks ago when he wouldn't even stand on it. Tania says he was chasing girls (Hannah) in school this morning along with Teacher Michael (a Brit so Jacob must gravitate towards the accent!). Anyway, "casty" comes off next week and we are looking forward to getting back to normalcy - including being re-potty trained.

My brother Matt and his wife Adrienne stayed with us the last couple of nights and it was great to see them. They got lots of quality Jake & Andy time, which obviously wasn't easy to do when we were living full time in London. Speaking of which ... only 6 more days in Sunny California until I head back to Old Blighty and I only got back to California last weekend. I've gotten used to the commute so really not that bad on me but just miss the family when I'm away.

And finally, I had that magical father-son moment tonight. Last weekend I bought Jacob "Finding Nemo," which I had been waiting to watch with him for the past couple of years. I struggled to get the brand new Panasonic recordable DVD player hooked up to the Motorola DVR cable box, which is connected to the Samsung HDTV ready 50" rear projection DLP TV set. I started to feel like I was crumbling from the weight of technology around me - even after 2 trips to Radio Shack for help armed with digital photographs of the backs of all of my machines. "Just give me any cable that will solve my problem - I DON'T CARE HOW MUCH IT COSTS!!!" Jacob kept saying, "Can I help? Can I help you? let me do it!"

Tania tried to come to the rescue by handing Jacob the Crate & Barrel catalog and asking him to look at the TV pictures and tell us what to do - great tactic to keep him out Dad "the Wrecking Ball's" way. He announced, "I know, Daddy, push really hard" as he demonstrated on the remote control for the TV player that is in the other room. At least it lightened the mood.

I managed to get the set-up working after 30 minutes and we were able to salvage the evening (and my fatherly pride) by watching the first half of Nemo. To anybody who has a child I don't need to tell you the magic of watching Disney (Pixar especially) with an almost 3 year old and having them laugh, get scared (Bruce the Shark!) and show concern, "Daddy, where is Nemo? His daddy can't find him." Heartwarming.