War wounds again!!

I wasn't going to post this week cause I loved Leslie's post so much and don't wanna take away from that one. But I remember the one week I missed I got the once over from Brooke so will make this short so as to satisfy my weekly post promise but not to take away from Graham's b.day!!

We had a party at Delwyn's inlaws last Saturday and it was a great day but Masaru fell off of a wall and scraped his arm. Mum was holding his hand and as he fell she pulled him up, alas, he recieved this war wound.

Then the head shot is the result after taking that purple glue off of Masaru's head. The nurse did such a bad job that now he has another wound above the first wound due to her being unskilled in the purple glue area. So my sister the nurse took the glue off and we took pictures!!

Sarah brought Masaru another NZ tracksuit! So here's a pic with his cuzzies.

And finally here's Dru and his daughter chilling!!!

We got Masaru's ears and eyes checked and they're officially perfect. So that's a big phew!!

It was my father's 60th yesterday on the 14th of March. We ate jellybeans and had cake and sung to him. I just wanna say how much I miss and love my dad. He wasn't perfect, but I know he loved me and still loves me.

Today's Menu

Today's menu is for all you carnivores out there, particularly if you are partial to cannabalism. The special is a piece of upper arm, not the fatty tricep part though, we're serving the sinewy piece to the side of the bicep. It may be tough, but if you have had a frustrating day it may be especially satisfying.

A couple of days ago I was eaten alive. Well, not literally, but not for lack of trying. You see, as a part of my pediatric rotation I was spending two days in a program based special education school for children with multiple disabilities. It was a great school. I was assigned to a class of boys aged 12 to 16. Most had some physical disabilities, but all were mobile. The biggest challenge was the mental deficits and behavior problems. Some in the class included a runner (he would literally take off to Walmart or whatever at any given opportunity), a two hundred pound boy with Down's Syndrome and a history of violent episodes, a sweet sixteen year old that occasionally had HUGE temper tantrums and frequently had seizures, and a SMART silent twelve year old with Autism that tried to make a meal out of me. He wasn't happy when I took away a board book that he was ripping to shreds. I saw him coming at me with his hands outstretched, his typical MO is to pinch (very hard) underneath the top of your upper arm or under your chin, but when I held his arms so that he couldn't, he leaned over and tried to take a bite out of my arm. I know he knew what he was doing, he is very smart, but I also can't imagine how frustrating it must be to have things so jumbled up in your head and not be able to communicate. This was a very sad boy. Still overall it was a good class and really the boys were good boys. I wouldn't be honest however if I didn't say that as I drove home "Count your many blessings" wasn't running through my head...
I count these as four of my greatest blessings.

The Middle Child

(This gift on the right, the "Martian Matter Alien maker" is what Graham bought with $ sent from New Zealand by Dru & Melissa. It's the big hit with all the boys-imagine that...aliens and goo! Thanks guys!)

This month is unofficially dedicated to Graham at our house, for several reasons. First, yesterday was his eight birthday, which is a big deal, kind of an emergence into becoming a "big" kid or something. This leads to the second reason, which is his upcoming baptism on the 29th, which (at our house) will actually be a bigger deal than the birthday. His birthday was a quiet affair this year, primarily due to Ryan and my hectic schedules. Also, I rotate years for friend parties and this is my year off. So we had a little family celebration after dinner consisting of a store bought cake brought by Grandma (no pirate ships, bugs, horses, or Thomas the tank cakes this year :) and Graham opening and playing with his gifts. Surprisingly Ethan played a large part in Graham's excitement yesterday. Ethan decided several days ago that he wanted to get a gift for Graham. When he suggested a Wii game to me I said, "oh honey, those are about $50." "Oh" he said and settled on a $20 gameboy game (which I think is a lot of money, especially when you're ten!) I think if he'd had $50 he would have bought one for him! Then he went through his prized Pokemon card collection and picked out a number of Graham's favorite collectible cards, made a special envelope for them out of paper, and wrapped it all together with the game. He proceeded to make a card for Graham, which probably took an hour or more. Ok, where is my real son? Not that Ethan isn't capable of generosity, but I don't know that I've ever seen it to this degree. This kind of thoughtfulness wouldn't surprise me if it came from Graham, who is so inherently tenderhearted and sweet. Graham was the most thrilled with Ethan's gifts and as the old adage goes I think that the thought meant more than the actual gifts.
Graham, like my niece Tess, is the typical middle child in that he is easygoing, easy to please, and because of those things, easy to give less attention to sometimes. I've been thinking about this a lot lately since I read about a study just published at BYU stating that children following the first get significantly less attention from their parents than first children do. In fact the study said that subsequent children get 3,000 hours less personal attention from parents between the ages of 4 and 13. 3,000 HOURS!?! That is 75 weeks (or nearly a year and a half) of full time work for many people! It has been weighing on my mind and I have to think that Graham, due to his good nature and good behavior, ironically, probably does get less attention than he deserves at our house. He is a model student at school, does what I ask, and is loved by everyone. So this is the last reason that March 2008 is unofficially dedicated to Graham, so that hopefully we can appreciate and celebrate what a great blessing he is to us, and how happy we are that he's ours! He is loved!