I found this sitting on my desk this morning.

With a note attached:

And they just told me they get out of school early tomorrow…

While we were staying at the hospital for our 23 hour tour, he was not allowed to eat. Surgery may have been eminent. His IV was hooked up for fluids (spare me the memory of watching him squirm and cry while his vein “blew” three times just trying to place the IV).

The next morning, it had been 18 hours since our last meal. I was ravenous… but I didn’t dare ask him if he was, for fear of inciting latent hunger pangs lingering in his tummy, just below the surface.

Mamma’s gotta eat… I needed my strength for whatever else would be laid out in front of me for the day.

I took a stroll down to the hospital cafeteria. This was a far walk… I had planned to eat down in the cafeteria, but it was so far — I couldn’t leave him alone that long. So, the plan was to eat in the room — with him — so I had to pick out something that would simply repulse him. That would be easy — he’s a picky eater — the vegetarian that doesn’t eat vegetables.

I scanned the salad bar, the soup kettles, the vending machines full of partially hydrogenated oils (his favorites!) and the clear plastic containers of tuna sandwiches and wraps. Soon, I spotted the perfect meal. Sushi. He hates Sushi.  And this was Hospital Sushi. I hesitated myself… but, hey, the word “hospital” in front of sushi would be the ultimate sacrifice. Nothing says Mommy is sacrificing too, like “hospital sushi.”

So, I carried my plastic tray of Hospital Sushi, and a cup of green tea back into room 523, where my son sat waiting, already glued to a video game of tic tac toe on the flat screen TV above his bed.

He noticed. “Is that urr lunch?”
“Yeah,” I said, and quickly followed up with those revolting words, “Hospital sushi.”

Without missing a beat, he looked up at me with his pitiful brown eyes, and said, “Can I have a tiny speck of your rice?”

I will add that that pitiful tray of Hospital Sushi was the worst meal I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. I couldn’t even finish the thing.

Within an hour, the nurse announced it was time for him to eat. This is what he ordered off the hospital menu:

• A bowl of rice
• Waffles
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Pears
• Green Gelatin
• Two cups of apple juice
• Sprite

The food came. He was busy eating. In silence. When the nurse came in to check on him, she said, “How’s your food.”

He mumbled, without looking up from his plate, “It’s dewicious.”

And he ate every tiny speck of a crumb.

He’s fine. We thought he was having an acute appendicitis… which called for an overnight “Observation.” While there, he miraculously got better.  Thank goodness… no cutting involved.

The hospital has just undergone a major renovation… the rooms, were beautiful. Sadly beautiful, like a posh hotel. Which, is truly, such a tragedy, that we ever need such beautiful spaces to keep parents and kids so happy during a scary time in their lives. Our friend Seth, missed this renovation… and we missed him during our stay. He would have loved this room. (Except for not being able to eat.)

There was a huge board in the back of the room, full of silhouette pictures of frogs and prairie grass, with an adjustable lens. You could “pick” your color for the day to match your mood. Ours was always green. At night, this big board was your nightlight.

Snapped with phone

He figured out how to get to the bathroom on his own, jumping out of bed, unplugging the IV, and wheeling it with him to the bathroom… and adjusting the bed buttons so he could easily manuever in and out of the bed easily without tangling the cord.

“Mom, did you know that when you hold those buttons they keep going?”

“Yeah, honey, you have to let go once you get the bed where you want it to be … you stop pressing.”

“Yeah, but it keeps going.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

I left to get some tea. I was probably gone 2.5 minutes tops. He was calmly in his bed, searching for a movie on his “personal laptop” the hotel hospital provided.

A few hours after we returned home, I overhead him telling his older brother this:

“…so, when you keep pressing the button, it keeps going. So, when mom left to get her tea, I kept holding the button until my legs were straight up in the air… just like Curious George when he broke his leg!” Then, laughter.

The least he could have done was to let me see so I could have snapped a picture.

“OH Yeah! Well,  when you go to bed you wear an Origami KIMONO! And I’m telling everyone at school!!!…..”

Blurry Kodachrome memories…. when things just move too fast — and there’s no camera fast enough to catch them. I did my best.

It’s his birthday. The one who loves green. And trains… and the entire concept of wearing shorts all winter. That one. He’s ten. I made the greenest cupcakes I have ever seen.

I used an entire bottle — the big one, one ounce– of green food coloring.

Then, we made this cake balls for his class “treat.”

Have you had a cake ball yet? They are SOOOOOO good. And why wouldn’t they be? You simple take a baked cake, put it into your food processor, along with a glob of icing, dip it in chocolate, and add sprinkles. Why wouldn’t that be good?

Then, we let him get an aquarium… for his room. To hold a couple of frogs. He is OVER THE MOON about this.
Right now, we are cycling the tank… this could take 2 to 4 weeks — before we can get the actual frogs.

I did all the research… and we have two very “tough” fish who are busy building the bacteria in the tank to get the water ready for the frogs. All I can say is, he is just over the moon with joy over this one… and it didn’t hurt that it was a full moon for his lovely birthday too.

Two summers ago, our neighbor carried a very large square “train table” out of their house and to the curb. Then the words “free” appeared on a piece of paper taped to the front. Made by the father, legs painted white, their son, about the same age as my little guys, used it as his “train table.”

At the time I needed a lego table, and the neighbor helped me carry it over and move this hand-crafted table into our lives. Never a train table (much too small for their creations), but always some kind of building table. This Christmas, it served as a building table for the mass of “building” Christmas presents. The Eiffel Tower, The K’Nex Ferris Wheel, The K’Nex Roller Coaster (absent during picture because owner decided to tear it down for repairs), The Sears Tower (leftover from our trip to Chicago), and the Origami Christmas Trees — with a white sheet for “snow.” There was a time when a lego figure appeared… and it was the Abominable Snowman. The scene, was obviously a 3-d replica of none other than King’s Island at Christmas.

All designed by two very, clever sweet little boys. This is one tree that is very, very hard to take down.

When, I called home from Chicago, the boys picked up the speaker phone, which meant that I could actually hear the sound of his feet padding across the kitchen floor as he ran, breathless, to the computer to check out his Youtube video. Up in Chicago, where it was cold, I was melting  with joy over the news I had to share. At they time, they were busy building “Chicago” in their room out of their 3-d puzzles…

Note that Elf had “TPed” the room.

My little guy had been checking his Youtube stats daily, since we posted his tutorial on how to make an Origami Christmas tree. He was averaging about 12 views… and 8 of those views were his.

So, before I left for Chicago, I emailed Rob… his origami teacher… who has patiently taught so many how to make so many different origami creations. Rob, who my son did credit in his video.

Rob, responded while I was in Chicago. Not only did he leave a nice little comment, but he posted our video on his page… and brought the page views up well over 800.

Best Christmas present ever.

Oh yeah.

He’s back… and he’s been quite the challenge to “manage” while we’ve been working through the Great Altoids Gift Challenges.

Here’s what he’s been up to this year — from my newspaper column.

We can freely debate the existence of Santa in our house — but when it comes to Elf, there is no discussion. Out of all of the make-believe characters that are introduced to children, Elf is the only one that truly helps me. For example, I’ve found him standing guard in front of the Kitchen Aid Mixer, preventing me from creating a icing-massed disaster with my over-zealous dream of a Martha Stewart gingerbread house. Some days, in the throes of the holiday hustle and bustle, Elf is the only one who remembers to move the marker on our Advent Calendar.

More importantly, when the stress level is too high, he’s the one who pulls out the karaoke machine and gets us singing to yet another verse of We Wish You a Merry Christmas. And thoughtfully, Elf mixes the reindeer food in advance, so that we’re ready. I’ve warned my family not to have any discussions that even hint at the possibility that Elf is nothing but velour and stuffing. If Elf ever heard us talking like that, he would leave for sure.

Except for this year. Elf has been making his mischievous side a bit more apparent. His antics go beyond the snowball fights he organizes with the other stuffed toys in the house, (the one that involves mini-marshallows). I’m talking about that one particular morning we found he had made snow angels. On the counter. With flour. The next morning, the boys woke up to find their room had been “toilet papered.” Elf was found sitting in the corner of the room with the empty toilet paper roll dangling from his velour-stuffed arm. Elf loads the TiVo with Christmas specials, leaving no memory space for our own shows. And Elf is always the one who leaves the Legos lying all over the floor — it’s never the boys, so they tell me. We came home just in time one night, to catch Elf sneaking the tape off the wrapped presents under the tree. And, don’t even ask us about what is up with our Christmas lights — Elf messes up the timers on the lights so that the lights are on during the day, and off in the evening. Sadly, there are even teeth marks on the gingerbread ornaments dangling from the tree — from very small teeth.

One morning, Elf made the boys late for school. They had trouble scrubbing off the single red dot that Elf had painted on their noses while they were sleeping.

Clearly, Elf may have over-stayed his welcome this year. Yet, Elf, I’m learning, is perceptive. He knows when I’ve had enough, and just when I’m searching the house to find him so that I can promptly stick him back into the Christmas storage box in the attic, he changes. That’s when I find him sitting in a rocking chair, with a stack of Christmas books neatly propped in his lap, “reading.” Or, the clincher, is the notepad I found on the dining room table. Each page included a date, with a list: “Things I Caught Your Kids Doing Good this week.”

He made his own “origami” envelope for his Wish List,

with special instructions for Santa.

I’ve been banned from the kitchen.

I hear the sounds of crinkling paper, tape being pulled…. the elves must be soooo busy.