And the lifetime achievement award goes to . . .

Tonight I went to my baby brother's spring choir concert. He's a graduating high school senior, so this was my last chance to attend a sibling's concert. I dragged my husband and four children, ages 5, 4, 2, and 7 months tomorrow, along with me. I did not have to ask myself if it would be worth it because I knew it would be.

The music, the black formal dresses and tuxedos, the slideshow of seniors and choir events throughout the year, the seniors singing "Roots and Wings," the senior girls holding hands and everyone hugging everyone else, just sitting in the auditorium took me back, and the nostalgia was definitely flowing.

The most impressive event of the evening was the fact that my mom, less than a week after coming home from her two-week hospital stay and surgery, got herself up and dressed and went with my dad to see her youngest son's last choir concert of his high school career. In a few months he'll be off to college.

As the choir booster organization was recognizing the choir directors and the directors were recognizing the accompanist and the graduating seniors, I couldn't stop thinking about what a friend mentioned just before the concert started. "Your mom just told me that she and your dad have been coming to Midway choir concerts for over 21 years."

I began hoping that somewhere in all those thank yous and recognitions they would recognize my parents, who were attending choir concerts long before the choir directors and pianist began working there, before the booster club existed, and before the auditorium was even built. I was hoping someone would make a special announcement or bring out a special plaque or a bouquet of flowers for the parents graduating their eleventh Midway senior and choir member, but no one did. They probably don't even know.

It doesn't really matter, since my mom would have done (and in reality did) whatever she had to do to be there just because it was Matthew's concert. I'm pretty sure my mom and dad got into parenting for the rewards, not the awards. I can't remember my mother ever missing a concert. It did take just about everything she had, and she ended up skipping out on ice cream and post-concert analysis around the kitchen table, but thanks to my amazing, wonderful husband, for the first time in over 21 years, my mom now has a video recording of Matthew singing with his choirs, and she can enjoy it whenever she wants. I hope she also enjoys Rose saying over and over, "Me seepy; me seepy. Me lay down." during his appropriately titled song, "Sleep."

I love you, Mom. Congratulations, Matthew. Happy spring, happy singing, happy graduation.

life and stuff

Elijah is doing great, but my mom could use your prayers. She came home yesterday after spending nearly two weeks in the hospital. You can read about it here and here.

Six months!!

Elijah had a quiet half-birthday the week after surgery, and today I took him to Dallas for his post-op checkup. He weighs 14.5 pounds and is 25 3/4 inches long. His EEG and heart echo both looked great. The doctor says he has minimal leaking around his tricuspid valve, which is normal, because the right chamber of his heart is pumping 1.5 times the amount of blood a normal heart would pump.

Before the Glenn it was pumping twice the normal amount (all the blood). The next surgery, around 3 years, will take care of that. She also said the amount of leaking she saw in Elijah was about the best they see in babies with his condition post-Glenn, and she was very happy about that.

Mr. E is on *one* medication twice daily, furosemide (Lasix), which is fantastic, considering other HLHS babies we know are on as many as five or more daily meds. His incision is healing beautifully. The last of the steri-strips fell off today, so he can have real baths again. The nurse gave me some adhesive remover to get the rest of the sticky stuff out of his hair from his scalp IV. Thank you, nurse.

Oh, yes, and every time I set him down and he discovered the crinkly paper on all the examination tables, he went into super kicking mode. That wasn't really conducive to an EEG or an echocardiogram, but these people are professional. And they are pediatric heart specialists. They swaddle like nobody's business and provide Baby Einstein videos for his watching enjoyment.

Elijah cannot have any tummy time for at least two more weeks, or a minimum of four weeks total, to give his sternum a chance to heal. We basically need to treat it like a broken bone. He can't roll over yet, and probably wouldn't want to even if he could, but he's getting really good at sitting up and loves to see what's going on.

And in more traditional baby news, baby boy has entered the world of food variety. His reaction to mashed banana was interesting. He has taken all kinds of nasty medicine and liquid vitamins by mouth without batting an eye. From the look on his face as he tasted banana, I might as well have been giving him a dill pickle. Maybe something a little more bland next, like green beans or oatmeal cereal.