Micronaxx

Eyeing an empty stem from which a large petal had detached & descended:

• Finn: “What happen to that flower up there?”
• Mom-O: “Oh, it got kind of old, so the top part fell off.”
• F. (earnestly insistent yet quizzical): “Fix it?!”
• M.: “Um, yeah, it doesn’t really work that way…”
• F.: “Duct tape?!”

Hip Hip Hooray, Henry Nack is A-OK!!!

We’re just back from the pediatric urologist, and have fantastic news. Henry’s kidneys and ureters are absolutely perfectly fine. He has no blockage, everything is draining as it should, and the issues we were seeing before have resolved themselves almost completely. Hooray!!!

No more antibiotics, no more tests, no surgery, and no more worries about our guy’s kidneys. We’ll do one more ultrasound in June to check on the slight remaining swelling in the left ureter, but the Dr. assures us Henry will outgrow the issue completely, and that we have no reason to worry about anything.

Speaking for both John and me: “Whew!”

Whew–what an evening. Things were running pretty much as usual, with everybody happy and active as ever. During dinner Henry got fussier and fussier, so after we finished I gave him some gas drops for his tummy. Who knows whether that was the trigger, but immediately afterwards–well, let’s just use the word “projectile” and leave it at that. Poor little guy. I can’t recall seeing anything quite like it, putting the fountains of the Bellagio to shame.

“Finny saw that!!” his brother declared excitedly. Eyeing the carnage, he pronounced it “Disgusting baby food.” After being shooed out of the room, though, he returned to do something profoundly sweet: Bringing in his beloved lion-buddy Leo, Finn said, “Bring lion over to help him out a little bit!,” making Leo peck Henry on the head. He may have been thinking of The Lion and the Mouse, a new favorite book from cousin Anne Nack.

Fortunately a good puke seems to have been just what the G-Man needed, and from that point on he was his regular content self.

Bonus Finny bits o’ the eve:

1. Margot observed him talking by himself in the kitchen, making each of his hands into a little talking wedge. “I would like some more graham crackers, please!” one hand told the other.
2. During his bath Finn was making up a bunch of crazy jibberish, saying, “What that mean?” I told him, “You’re a strange boy.” “And good!” he replied. “Strange and good!”

Finn, grabbing my ear, turning my head, and peering intently this evening:

F: “Finny the doctor. Checkin’ out the ear.”
J: “Uhh… what do you see? Is there any byyuck in there?”
F: “No. Buncha hole in there.”

We’re all still coming down from our Thomas-cake-induced sugar crash, so we’ve been a little slow in sharing photos and news.  I know, I know: thinking that taking three days off from a family blog constitutes being “slow” is more than a little warped.  We do have a backlog of some fun pics and videos, though, so look for those soon.

This morning Mom-O headed out for Pilates plus a haircut, leaving me to manage both lads–including getting Henry down for his nap.  I’d been weirdly psyched out about that task, but happily, he was a dream about the whole thing.

Afterwards, Finn and I headed outside to climb up a full-size ladder, among other things.  Yes, that does sound like an unbelievably awful idea, but I was holding onto/following him the whole time.  Finn, carrying his plastic crescent wrench, was “Handyman” and dubbed me “helper.”

“Handyman climbing up to the clouds!,” he announced.

Soon we were having fun with letters & wordplay.  Pointing to the name of the ladder with me looking over his shoulder, Finn remarked, “Bunch of letters right there.”

“Yep,” I said, “W-E-R-N-E-R.  That spells ‘Werner.’  Or maybe,” I said, cueing up an over-the-top German accent, “it’s ‘Vurh-ner.”
“No!” said Finn. “Not Vurhner!  Dad-O say the wrong thing!”
“Dad-O said the wrong thing??” I asked, kind of taken aback.
“Uh-huh.”  Then he turned to look at me slyly and said, “Vurhner.”
“Vurhner?” I repeated.
“No, no Vurhner,” he said, turning away again. “Finny no say the wrong thing.”

And thus concludes today’s performance of Nack Family Aerial Playhouse. 🙂

Noon today saw our little guy trussed up a bit like Frankenstein, Velcroed to a table with an IV and a catheter jabbed into him. We were in the basement of the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, where technicians pumped a radioactive solution through Henry’s system to check his kidney function. (The speed of the process, they said, would tell us about whether his ureters are constricted or blocked.)

Things got pretty rough for a while, with Henry crying & me unable to pick him up, being able only to kiss & sing to him. Offering him a bottle of water helped a great deal, though, and finally he fell asleep for part of the 45-minute procedure. Whew. Now we wait (again) for more information.

The good news, of course, is that the little guy remains healthy & happy, with no evidence of trouble. We continue to feel blessed to have access to such good health care, and we look forward to finding out more.