Ice cream makes it all better. That's a life lesson.

Last night, it was my turn to pray with Andrew.

"Dear Heavenly Father,
(*insert the usual expressions of gratitude here*)
We thank thee for our children's health...

(pause)

Opening my eyes I look up. Suddenly it dawns on me.

"Oh honey! I just remembered! Henry has a doctor's appointment in the morning. TIME OUT! I have to go down stairs and check how early I have to be there!!!" And that is the closest thing to personal inspiration that I've experienced in a long while.

Following the happily remembered appointment, the kids and I hit our local McDonald's (9:45 am) for a round of $1.00 sundaes. Eliza & Henry earned the early morning treat after a heart wrenching, long lasting appointment this morning. In addition to the expected immunizations, Henry was in need of some lab work to check his iron levels.

This is me at my job.
Usually, it's pure awesome.
However, trips to the Doctor's office
qualify as being totally ugly.

After five painful minutes of squeezing the tip of his tiny finger (imagine someone juicing a lemon for a visual) failed; the phlebotomist fetched a more capable co-worker. She was able to successfully draw enough blood from his arm. Feeling bitter that the first attempt had been futile considering how long she'd tortured him; I found myself questioning my decision to remind the doctor that he was in need of a follow up test.

Poor Henry wailed and wailed. Feeling helpless, I buried my tearful face into his chest while restraining his angry limbs. I kissed his free hand and stroked his hair as we waited through his distress. All the while, a distraught Eliza ordered,

"Get Henry away from that lady, Mama!" The experience was drawn out (pun intended) and I found myself feeling unprepared as I did my best to pass the time for Eliza. During our wait at the lab, Eliza entertained the waiting room as she spun in circles. A thoroughly dizzy version of my child tottered unsteadily after an intense round of spinning. As she clumsily made her way to my chair, she hollered,

"I AM FINE MOM! DON'T WORRY, I'M FINE!!" and then she collapsed. The room erupted in laughter.

Henry's growth pleased the doctor. He's still a peanut (below the 5th percentile in weight but finally in the 20th for height) but after looking at the dots on his chart, he was confident in his progress. Developmentally he's right on track with his word usage, understanding, etc.

At the moment, he weighs a solid 20 lbs and 6 ozs.

I felt bad that Andrew had to miss out on all of the excitement. In fact, I called him during one of our waits to inform him of our child's ordeal.

"Please console him" I said as I put my cell phone to Henry's ear. In his most business-like, bored and monotone sounding voice, Andrew said,

"Hello Henry. This is Daddy." Man. He nearly put Henry to sleep with all of that enthusiasm! Andrew's personality shifts to incredibly serious (a.ka. dull) when he's in his professional element. I respect that but am certain that his co-workers are clueless to the type of man he really is.

He's a man-child whose children are his best play-mates. He derives great joy from amphibians and reptiles. He loves to laugh. His garden makes him giddy and the group of young men that he teaches each week at Church silently admire him 'somethin fierce.' He's a solid role model and a great Daddy.

On Saturday, I handed over the keys to my incredibly hot Mom-mobile (I'm still a proud owner of a Sienna) so that I could attend Super Saturday, which was an estrogen-filled, craft happy marathon of a morning. As I tried my hand at a power drill, Andrew loaded up the kids for a fishing trip.

Coming home, I discovered a new addition to our cookie jar. You may remember from a previous outing that our cookie jar was recently nominated to serve as our replacement fish tank. The current tenants are a pair of tadpoles that were captured from a nearby creek. To Andrew's great delight they have transformed into full fledged frogs. You can often find him catching house flies or crickets and feeding them alive to the frogs (gross).

After their outing, he introduced our frogs to a four inch blue gill that Eliza caught. When I came home, he greeted me at the door with an enthusiastic smile.

"Eliza caught three fish this morning! LOOK!"

He's smart. Certainly the wife wouldn't be upset that the cookie jar was now housing a decent sized fish if it was entangled with a piece of her daughter's happiness! Clearly, he was the one who couldn't wait to show me. Still, Eliza was proud of her fish. She named him Scram (No idea what inspired the name). Scram enjoyed a few hours in our cookie jar, but unfortunately didn't make it through the night.

Scram was the smallest of three fish she caught. The hook was deeply lodged, Andrew explained, and if he hadn't brought it home in a nalgene bottle, (a nalgene bottle that I will never be drinking from again) the fish would not have survived. He took him home to perform the necessary life saving operation... that essentially extended his life for a matter of hours.

RIP Scram.

His enthusiastic mood continued after picking a bowl of tomatoes. I had to laugh as I scrolled through the images on my camera the following day. There were loads of pictures of our kids. All of which, were taken by me.

Then, I saw a batch of pictures taken by Andrew of the same deformed tomato. There were six pictures of the same tomato taken a variety of ways. This collage is for you Andrew.

He plays and loves and dotes on his children. However, it's the curious looking tomato that qualified for the experimental photo shoot :)

Last week, some ladies from our the ward and I caravaned our children to the Zoo. We're averaging a weekly Zoo visit as of late! And if you'll notice in the group picture below, there was one child in particular who refused to comply and conform to having her picture taken.
This response is truly typical of my sweet child. You should see the past two family portraits. At Katie's wedding last summer, Eliza's the only child whose head is about to fall off from screaming in protest. At my parent's home this past Christmas, the picture shows tears of rage for being forced to sit still for the single group shot we took.

Alas, I love her to death. I love Henry too and ached horribly for him this morning.

However, the phone rang two minutes ago. It was the Dr.'s office. His levels are NORMAL and I am one grateful Mom. The peace of mind outweighs the trauma. Here's to a great week full of happy news for each of you.