DAY THREE together

NIGHT THREE: simon is already starting to get more comfortable with the pets; here he is stroking sunny’s back and looks quite pleased with himself; unfortunately, as he gets more comfortable, he also gets recklessly bold, since he hasn’t learned what not to do with animals (ie, poke their faces, pull their tails, etc); sunny has nipped him once (not gravely), so he will probably learn quickly; the first two nights, he balked at the thought of the pets being anywhere near our room, whereas last night he actually demanded they accompany us in bed; yes, that’s right, simon wound up sleeping with us last night, despite his having gone down in the room he shares with toby (and despite our having had our fingers tightly crossed); around 11 pm, simon emerged from their room and it was clear what he wanted, so we slept together until jet lag got the better of us three at 4 am

DAY THREE: poor simon is having a ton of lab work done (diagnostic stuff like HepB, HIV, syphilis, etc., as well as titers for all the vaccines he has supposedly already been given), so that meant he needed to surrender a fair amount of blood today; the phlebotomists were great, but even so, it required three sticks; the poor kid sat in my lap screaming; he’s so strong, too, that it was pretty tough to restrain him; i’d given him M&Ms to calm him, and at one point he actually drooled blue food coloring; it looked horrendous and undoubtedly sounded miserable (and scary!) to the patients in the waiting room; he did great, though; they got the 7 vials of blood they needed, and once it was over, it was as if it hadn’t happened; in fact, he didn’t even wince when rick removed the very sticky gauze tape tonight; what a trooper!

from these pictures, you’d think that i was always the photographer and only rick actually got face time with the boys, but not so today, since rick went back to work; after dropping toby off at school this morning, simon and i spent a very nice day together, starting with a trial class at a nearby kids’ gym, the blood draw (admittedly not a high point), a quick stop at our temple to show him off, lunch on the road, a return visit to his pediatrician’s office, second lunch at home (simon had two of every meal today, beginning with the “oatna” (oatmeal) he had me make him at 4 am!), then a nice long nap together; highlights from the boys today were toby telling us “the bad trains had visited him in his sleep…but so had the good ones” (what a relief, toby!) and simon quite intelligibly imitating toby saying “punchbuggy yellow!” (the kid can hardly utter an english-sounding word, but the words “punchbuggy” and “yellow” were somehow clear as day – go figure)