Peek-a-boo

For my boys

Today I received my first tattoo. When I say "first" I mean pre-meditated well thought out very personal design, not the chinese character I flippantly decided to get on a whim at 19 years old after debating for three long minutes. What can I say, it was 1995.



Above is the image that first inspired the tattoo idea and below are the words that give it meaning:



"You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

- excerpt from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran



And here are the two reasons I wanted to get this tattoo in the first place:

P.S. Mom, don't be mad. :-)

Before bed sillyness....

Brave boy Liam

Thank you all for your love and prayers!! Liam was a total cool dude about the whole thing. No crying or complaining the whole trip down. Still not much complaining as I dressed him in the vintage looking clown and elephant hospital p.j.'s. His dad even got him to laugh. I sat with him on my lap as the surgeon, an intern, two nurses, and the nicest anesthesiologist in the world went over every detail of what would happen and how one of us could actually go into the operating room with Liam while they started sedation. G was awesome enough to let me be the one to go. Dressed in full scrubs, Liam and I walked down the hallway to the OR. He sat on the table as the anesthesiologist administered the anesthesia through a mask and told him a story about the three bears. He was out in less than a minute and with a quick kiss I left the room without breaking down. Not even a tear. I was feeling pretty cool and tough about it all. We even had a nice breakfast in the cafeteria with G's parents while we waited.

A quick hour and half later G and I were called into recovery where Liam was just waking up and when he saw us he started crying. Bloody tears. And he was still hooked up so the nurse situated him on my lap as he continued to cry and say "owie". The surgeon came in to explain the recovery process and as he went on talking I started to feel really hot, nauseous, dizzy, and as I passed Liam hurriedly to the doctor I promptly passed out a few steps away. As my family knows, this is not news. Every time I get blood drawn I have to be lying down or else. But this was the first time I'd fainted on someone else's behalf. What in the heck. As the nurse who came to check on me later said, "nursing is not your calling." For real, lady. For real. Oh yeah, and the staff had called their 911 unit so four cute dudes showed up to check my vitals and my hair looked crazy and I felt really dumb. Geez!

But our boy Liam was strong and brave through it all (even if his mother wasn't) and he watched DVDs the whole way home in the car. The first thing he wanted to do when he got home was play with his new toy motorcycle. Things are already getting back to normal. :)

Trying to keep Liam in a good mood pre-surgery...