Day 227, Year 7: A Good Day in the Life
Date: Friday, June 22, 2012
Weather: Repeat–Another Beautiful Day, Very Warm
Location: At Heather and Jed’s in E Falmouth, MA

After a bit of a shaky beginning, today was a good day. Even with us here
to help, Heather is still a single parent this week. She deals with all
three boys during the night, and some nights are better than others. One
way or another all three end up in bed with her by morning, but she swears
she is still getting enough sleep to survive. Our days start early, at 7
am, when Sam and Jonah get up and come downstairs. This morning Mark and I
needed to leave for an oncology appointment by 9:10 am and Heather had hoped
to walk down to the corner with all three boys by 9:20 to catch the bus into
town. From there she would have gotten on the summer trolley to Woods Hole
where she needed to cut some promos for her show on Monday. Even though we
had two hours, Heather had to push the boys to get dressed while holding
Oliver. Sam had a complete melt down over not being able to wear his
favorite t-shirt which was in the dirty laundry. One thing led to another
and it soon became obvious that the adventure of taking the bus and trolley
was not going to work. That caused more tears because the boys, especially
Sam, was looking forward to it. We were going to take the van to the doctor
appointment and then meet Heather in Woods Hole. But at the last minute, we
ended up taking Sam and Jonah to the doctor appointment with us and Heather
stayed home to get dressed, nurse Oliver, and then drive to Woods Hole to
cut the promos. The trip to the doctor ended up to be an adventure for Sam
and Jonah. They both really wanted to go in with Mark and watch the nurse
draw blood for his bi-weekly blood tests. They got to meet a male nurse
(Sam had told me a couple of days ago that men can’t be nurses) and a female
doctor. And the nurse that drew the blood was so good with the kids. She
told them Granddad was like a juice box and she was going to put a straw in
to get the juice (blood in this case). They thought that was funny. And
then they went in with us to talk to the doctor. They were so interested
and so good and everyone loved them. Jonah says he thinks he’ll be a
hospital work when he grows up if he decides not to be a firefighter. And
even though Mark has been feeling really lousy, the doctor continues to say
that he is doing great. His blood counts are dipping a bit but everything
is still in the normal range. She is watching the calcium count with
indicates the parathyroid problem, but it is staying stable for now. We’ll
learn more about that on July 3 when we have an appointment at Mass General
in Boston.

When we arrived in Woods Hole, Mark headed to Windbird to run the engine to
charge the batteries and Sam, Jonah, and I joined Heather and Oliver on the
grassy hill adjacent to the radio station. Heather had already cut the
promos, so we just played. The boys love that hill and they preferred to
stay there rather than walk to the park. Heather and boys then took the
trolley back to town. Mark stayed on the boat to continue charging the
batteries, and I drove Heather’s van back to town to pick up H, J, S, and O.
We had lunch in town and then came home for naps. Heather had a routine
doctor’s appointment, so Mark and I watched sleeping boys. Well, Oliver
didn’t sleep, but he played quietly in his bouncy seat while I got the other
two to sleep and then assembled a new fan. The temperature in the house has
been approaching 90 degrees F, so fans are a necessity. In the later
afternoon, Heather got on her bee gear and put a new super on top of the bee
hive body. The boys and Mark watched from the living room window. Heather
was able to identify the queen and confirm that all is going well in the
hive. We had a great dinner of fish tacos and got the boys in bed by a
reasonable time. So I call that a good day in the life.

I have to share something that happened yesterday before closing this log.
Kids Say the Darndest Things . . . Art Linkletter had it right back in the
late 50’s when started that show. They also DO the darndest things. Last
night just before dinner, we were in the backyard with the boys. Somehow we
got to the topic of yoga and I asked Sam and Jonah if they could sit on the
ground with legs outstretched and touch their head to their knee. Sam tried
and couldn’t, but Jonah immediately touched his head with one hand and
touched his knee with the other hand and declared victory. Only an ‘almost’
three year-old would do that. It was just too cute.