We had a busy day today. We planned on
getting lots of chores around the house done, but instead spent
2 hours at an OR Open House at the hospital (very interesting!)
and then a friend’s 40th birthday party.

My aunt organized the (first?) OR Open House at our fancy
hospital. I had no idea what to expect from it and it was
great. They had lots of different room (20 or so, I think) set
up with examples from different types of operations
(cardiovascular, open heart, eye, costmetic, etc.) Each room
had displays about that type of surgery and nurses everywhere
to explain procedures, fancy new replacement body parts, and
what the nurses and machines all do. They also had little
things for the kids to play with, demos of surgery tools, and a
display of their (new?) training dummy that has all the
appropriate vitals and responds to input and actions by the
staff. It was really neat. Lex was tired, but fascinated as we
walked around looking at everything. We met the grandparents,
Katie, and even a woman from my old A&P; class. She’s in the
surgery technician training program now and loving it. Great
job Katie!!

After Lex’s nap we headed
out to a friend’s party. There were lots of little boys and
their house is nice and big with a circle to run around. The
kids were thrilled. They also have a nice big staircase in the
corner (where it’s hard to see) so Lex took advantage of my
trying to be social and climbed up and down the stairs
(unaided) as much as possible. At one point I found him and a
3yr old little boy upstairs. I said, “Is anyone up here with
you?” He said, “No”. Me: “Ok, I’m going to take Lex down now. I
don’t want him upstairs unsupervised.” 3yr old: “It’s ok, I’m
watching him.” …. Hmmm… somehow that didn’t really reassure
me :) Lex loved running around with all of the older kids
though. Towards the end of the night I decided to just let it
be (I’d seen him successfully maneuver the stairs several times
by this point) and hope for the best. Cake was served. It got
late. I went to find Lex to start getting ready to head home. I
come around the corner to where the stairs are and find him
sitting in the dark, on a little mattress under the stairs,
watching TV and eating cake. Fork in one hand, chocolate
frosting all over his face :) It was hysterical! The kids had
set up a little cozy corner to watch a movie and eat their
cake. One by one they had left (went home, got a drink, etc.)
and Lex must have been left alone or happened across unguarded
cake. Either way, he was thrilled. When I walked in he gave me
a brief look of “Am I being good or bad?” but it didn’t last
long as I quickly burst out laughing. So he grinned a big cakey
grin. The kid cracks me up.

Maybe
tomorrow we will get some chores done around here. We’ll see.
The best news, of course, is that our Internet access came
back. Yay!! They are still a little confused in the billing
dept, but we can work on that. For now I’m just happy to be
back in the real world ;)