the story of the day

so most nights when i'm putting molly to bed she asks me to tell her "the story of the day", basically just going thru all the things that happened that day. so here goes...

sofia and i woke up this morning at 5am to get ready to go in for her surgical appointment. as most of you know she was having a thyroidectomy. we got out without waking the girls and had an uneventful few hours at kaiser waiting, seeing nurses, and getting ready. here's sofia before they took her into surgery.

by the time they kicked me out it was 8:15 or so, and I headed back home where Mary (AKA Nona) was getting the kids ready for the day. We dressed up Clara as a bear(a) and went over to Kika's house with Nona. Then we all went with Molly and her homemade fire truck costume to Via Nova for their Halloween parade. I dressed up in my usual mechanic outfit. It was a great way to keep our mind off of the surgery going on at that time, marching all around the neighborhood with 100 kids and parents dressed up as everything from hamburgers to traffic lights to, of course, fire trucks.

The rest of the day was uneventful, I did some work and waited for Kaiser to call, which they did around mid-day to say that the surgery went great, everything was removed and there were no signs of additional problems. Yay! After a few more hours in recovery they even decided to let Sofia go straight home instead of spending the night, so I got her and brought her home and set her up with Nona to recuperate here. Then we got the girls, brought them quickly to say hi to mama, then sent them next door for Halloween night with the neighbors. We had a fun night of pizza and trick or treating, a good distraction for the girls of the fact they couldn't visit with their mama much. Nona even joined in the fun with her Fiffer-feffer-feff costume! For those that don't know, a fiffer-feffer-feff is a Dr. Seuss character from Dr. Seuss's ABC's - the letter F stands for "four fluffy feathers on a fiffer-feffer-feff". Finally we all collapsed in exhaustion and went to bed, except for me staying up tending to the ladies and writing this blog post. Happy halloween!

Halloween

Molly is super excited to dress up as a fire truck tomorrow for Halloween. She's been talking about her costume for months now (it's changed a lot - she wanted to be a dinosaur, then a fire truck, then a princess, then a Fiffer-Feffer-Fuff, etc.). We finally made the costume last weekend, and, I gotta say, I'm really impressed with us. Zach & Molly found the box, Molly picked out the paint and the ribbons, we painted it together (she did the red, I did the black), and she painted the wheels, the ladder, and even decided on her own to have a grill on the front!

I'm bummed, though, that I won't get to see her dressed up on Halloween. Unfortunately they scheduled my surgery for tomorrow, so, if all goes according to plan, I'll be in the hospital recovering from having my thyroid removed. Of course, I'm still worried that I'll get a cold between now and then and I'll have to reschedule. Which would be a bummer also because it's hard to coordinate everything. We're lucky that Nona could come out and pinch hit for us - and she's lucky because she gets to take Molly in the preschool parade and trick or treating with the neighbors.

Habitot

I had an all-day training on Monday, so I missed the Zanklin Family Monday. But, from what I hear, it looks like Zach, Molly, & Clara had a pretty good time at Habitot, hanging out with Tommy and family, and going to gymnastics with Zade.

fantastic gymnastics

Molly's been enjoying a weekly "gymnastics" class. It's very mellow - jumping on a trampoline, swinging on a bar, etc - but the neat thing is to watch her enjoy using her body. After class she always jumps more, climbs more, runs more, etc. It was a difficult start - she was scared of the trampoline, and overwhelmed by the gym: there were soooo many classes going at once! Her instructor literally (yes, literally) lost her in the crowds of classes a couple times (Molly found the other classes more interesting). Then we discovered a quiet time at the gym with no other classes going on and she's blossomed. These are pictures from late August:

Clara Paints

August Molly

August Zoo Day with Nana and Nona

Kisso the doll (or was it Daulshun the doll?) even joined us on this trip!

August with Nona

dandi-lion

More pictures from way back when... these are from Nona's last visit in August (I'm thinking I should get all those up before she comes to visit again... on Wednesday!).

Birthday Pictures

Tissues

Clara's back at it, after a long weekend with lots and lots of puking. Actually, Zach and I think she's back and better than ever. Is that possible? Maybe it's the contrast with how sick she was over the weekend. Or maybe she just grew up while she was sick?

It all started with an innocent drive down to see the grandparents on Saturday night. What's usually a 2 hour drive (I had the brilliant idea of driving after bedtime) ended up taking 14.

14 hours, really? Yes. An hour into the drive little Miss Clara started puking.

We pulled over several times to clean up (stopping at that ATM was not a brilliant idea, and that, um, group of young men marching through an intersection was a little sketchy). Finally, we stopped at a friendly local In'N'Out Burger and called the Kaiser Advice Nurse (thank EBRPD for great health insurance!). Verdict: classic stomach flu (it's going around y'all!) and the puking would likely continue for a while longer.

Feeling rather stuck, we decided to stay put at the not at all sketchy hotel nearby. Good thing, too, because the puking did continue through the night. I feel a little bad for the piles of pukey towels we left, but mostly I feel thankful that we are in a position that we could afford to stay at a hotel an hour away from home.

We did get down to Nana & Pa's house and enjoyed a lovely weekend with them (and really appreciated their help cleaning up a couple more rounds of vomit). The nice part was how much fun Molly had with them while Zach and I tended to Clara.

And it was amazing to see what a great attitude Clara had through this all. At night she was clearly just tired and wanted to go to sleep. And during the day she was really cheerful between rounds of vomit. It was a little disconcerting, but nice.

Of course, it was a stomach flu, and on the ride home Molly started her own round of vomiting, and that night I joined in. But we're mostly better now. Especially Clara.

Tedachment

Knick-Nock
scabetti (spagetti)
property (properly)
tedatch (attach)
Te-Rock Oh Bama (Barak Obama)

Is it terrible that I don't correct Molly when she says funny, precious mixed up words like this? There are so many more... if only I could remember!

Pictures from a trip to the park in late August: Clara's foot; Molly builds, Clara smooshes; Clara crawls; Hands-In-The-Air!; Molly found a place to build without Clara; Molly; Molly tries to stop Clara from crawling away (a big concern of hers - she used to just lay down on top of Clara to stop her, but now she tries to hold her back); I convinced Molly that Clara could go and I'd pick her up if she got too far; Molly lets her go, but is still nervous; Molly & Clara back with mama; Clara.