Growing Up

School. A couple of weeks ago Eli had a little graduation celebration for his pre-school. Natalie did a little preschool this last year with a few of the neighborhood moms and it was a huge success. The kids loved being able to get together every week and I loved hearing about the “letter of the day.” I hope that something like this will happen next year. Eli is right at the cut off date for school so we’ll likely hold him back a year so he’s old for his age instead of young for his age. That means next year many of his friends will start real school without him so we’re investigating programs like Head-start and/or another neighborhood preschool.

Eli’s “situation.” The results from Eli’s last doctors visit were, as always, inconclusive… but they have enough to go on that they will be doing a follow up procedure in a few weeks. We are hopeful that one day we will figure this out and Eli will be able to stop going to the hospital every few months and that he’ll digest food just like everyone else. We’ll continue with the tests, only because we want him to live a happy life and to not die prematurely from kidney failure.

Eli did really well at the last visit (he only had to be restrained for a few minutes and didn’t cry/yell hysterically for any great length of time), but we’re glad that for the next one they will put him to sleep for the procedure. I’m purposely leaving this description vague because it isn’t a very pleasant subject to talk about. If you want more details you can give us a call.

After the procedure we rewarded him with his regular post doctor visit trip to the children’s museum in Indy. I love this picture of Sharon—it shows how the children feel when we tell them it’s time to leave.

In other news… Natalie went on her first YW campout this past weekend and had a great time. Tyler spent the weekend sleep deprived and training for my first triathlon next week. Sharon is now really into dolls and Eli is continuing to stay busy with his “projects” (this mostly consists of taping things together). We’re enjoying our summer.