Boy am I glad this is over!
This morning, Nicky went in the hospital to have his tonsils & adenoids removed and to have drainage tubes inserted into his ears. He's home now, and resting, but the past hours have been anything but fun.
Niek took Rowen to his parents' house last night so we could focus on Nicky today; Max went to his best friend's house after school (and is now at the beach!). We'll pick them both up before dinner so we'll all be home this evening. I definately do not like the experience of having my children scattered around!
Nicky was a real trooper after the operation, and was up & playing with the exciting new toys in the recovery ward before we left. He was by far the youngest of the kids in his ward, and by far the bravest. He really seems to understand that crying and yelling only make the pain worse, and he's (mostly) very good about taking his drink every quarter to half an hour.
I woke him this morning around 5 so he could get a last drink before the "no intake" rule went into effect, and he decided that was an excellent time to get up. I'd assumed he'd go back to sleep, and so would I, for another hour or so ....
Everyone tells me that once he recovers he will not only stay healther, but also have a lot more energy. If that really turns out to be the case, I may need some jet-propelled rollerblades.
Oops. I guess maybe I hadn't included this in an earlier posting. This is my interpretation of "Better A Small Fish" from the All You Can Eat leaflet by Prairie Schooler.
It's been a charity-minded weekend, stitching-wise. This cute critter is from the Barn Cats leaflet put out by Prairie Schooler in 1984. How is it possible that 1984, the middle of my (horrible) high school years, has already fallen 21 years into the past? (Picture Barbara shaking her head in mild confusion and disbelief.) Anyway, I'll leave the 'how can so much time have passed so quickly' rambling for another day and spare you that bit of boredom. Suffice it to say that I did goof on the border again - I obviously have a mental block on borders! - but the design came out quite well and I certainly hope the lady in England who receives it will enjoy it. I certainly had a good time stitching it (until the end stitches, when I attempted to close up the border).
I'm wondering what it is about Prairie Schooler designs that makes them so enjoyable. When you simply look at the chart, it's really not very interesting. I splurged on this leaflet (as anyone who's tried to hunt it down knows) and when I got it, I thought "oops - that was a mistake!" but I had this charity project to do and I figured I'd do the smallest cat first and just see how it turned out. The experience was similiar to stitching "Better A Small Fish" (also shown in an earlier entry) - it's sort of therapeutic, and the stitching seems to take on an existence of its own. The finished product is so much more than it looked like it would be based on the chart.
Anyway, I seem to remember making some vague promise to spare you boredom, so I'll wrap this up for tonight. I've become quite a fan of Praire Schooler designs lately (since stitching "Better A Small Fish", actually) and bought a few of the promo cards and all the stitching fairies recently, as well as my eBay guilty indulgences, so I guess you can expect to see them popping up here. My next piece, which I started tonight, is "Cats" from the Barrick Samplers alphabet card series. (Thanks to Maria for pointing these delightful cards out!) I'm doing it in colors to coordinate with our hungry kitty above because it will go into the same quilt.
But tomorrow is a long day at the office, so I don't expect I'll finish it before Tuesday night. And then I really will try to return to my August Goals list. Really.
Today's photo is "Better A Small Fish" by Prairie Schooler. I stitched this on 32 ct Tumbleweed using assorted GAST and Stranded by the Sea fibers.