I don't like haircuts or ENT check-ups

This is from Friday's visit to the ENT. James hates to have his ears checked, and he hates even more to be held tightly, which is the only way to check his ears because he thrashes. He gets so mad and screams so hard that he breaks the capillaries around his eyes, as you can see from this sad photo (if you click on it, you can see a final tear rolling off the side of his chin). He looked the same way after his haircut last weekend. He stops screaming as soon as he's not being held—and there's no one trying to get at him with an otoscope or shears.

The marks on his face take about a week to go away. For his parents, they're like a slowly fading map of the emotional stress of the visit—it bothers us afterwards more than it does him.

Cast Away

It's off!

 

That's not an optical illusion—her arm is in fact still crooked. The orthopedist said that when the bone grows back, it forms a callous, a good sign that she grew new, strong bone. The callous will smooth out over time as the bone remodels itself, so the arm will straighten out over time, probably a few months.

No regular gymnastics until at least April, although he said she can start doing low beam and dance moves and other things that won't put any exertion on the arm. She can do P.E. and recess, and she has to wear a brace for the next two weeks. She also has to do a little hand therapy to get the strength and flexibility back; her ring finger doesn't quite straighten yet. But she's getting there.

Chuck Lefley

My parents, my brother Mark, my uncle Chris, and my friend Brady might remember my boyhood obsession with the St. Louis Blues hockey team. Street hockey was a favorite recess and weekend sport, with each year culminating in the Manley Cup, our New Year's Eve finale played on the old blacktop basketball court at St. Gerard, with the school building serving as one end of the rink and the concession stand the other. Unique features to our rink included a killer hill along one side that had a few places where the fence didn't touch the ground, and if the ball or puck bounced just right, someone (usually one of the younger kids) had to clamber down the hill all the way to the soccer field and then huff back up while the rest of us took a break.

When I wasn't playing, I fancied myself an announcer: Jack Buck in the summers when imagining or re-enacting Cardinals games, and Dan Kelly in the winter during hockey season. Somewhere there's a cassette tape uncle Chris made of me when I was six or seven "announcing" a Blues game that I was creating as I announced it, complete with Stag beer commercial after the end of period one. The highlight of that period, I remember from listening to it again much later, was an apparently dazzling play by none other than Chuck Lefley, who made an incredible end to end rush filled with incredible moves and close calls that culminated in a highlight-worthy goal. I must have said the name "Lefley" (which I pronounced "Le flea") 30 times in those 15 or so seconds, and while I remember thinking at six or seven that I had the sort of deep, rounded tone of my favorite hockey broadcaster, when I listened to the tape all those years later I was shocked at how high-pitched my voice was.

And it was that high-pitched voice I heard when I saw these pictures James's teacher sent us last Wednesday:

 (My favorite—look at that grip! Head down, eyes on the ball! Good solid base in the legs!)

His teachers said he had a great time, and that he was passing the ball back and forth to them. And while he didn't really jump into the larger game that was going on, apparently he did wander into it with his own ball a few times, so they stopped everyone and gave James a turn. He loves to play air hockey at Grandma's house, but he doesn't like to use the mallet, he just likes to push the puck back and forth (and he'll say "puck" if you ask him). But the teachers said that they persisted for about five minutes with the little stick, and he just got it.

When I was showing Megan these pictures after school, James came up and looked and started patting himself in the chest like crazy (sign for "That's me," or "My turn") and grinning. He's also been trying to vocalize something that sounds like "hockey" when we ask him if he likes hockey—sort of a deep throaty 'kgh' sound. Fun stuff!