People, people, we got to get over before we go under

First things first: Nolan is fine. The surgery went off without a hitch yesterday, he is back at school today and all is well. I continue to be amazed at what a sanguine kid we are raising. I don't know how my hypochondriacal-ass self ended up with such an incredibly unflappable boy.

We kept him up late (for him) Monday night, he slept in (a bit) Tuesday morning, played with KB for a couple hours, and generally wasn't too bitchy about not being able to eat or drink anything. (We had previously prepped him with the explanation that the dentist would be giving him some medicine so he could fix his tooth, and if there was any food in his stomach it could make him very sick. He seemed okay with that.)

We went to the dentist's office at 10:30 and they gave him a little cup of medicine with Demerol and other good stuff (chloral hydrate maybe? I kind of blanked there for a bit, because while he was taking the medicine I was signing a form that said I understood that there was a [very small but definitely still there] risk of SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH with the anesthesia. That'll give you pause.) in it to make him drowsy. Then we got to hang out in the waiting room for about 45 minutes while the drugs took effect. Sorry I have no video goodness for you, Broc - we have no camera at the moment, so YouTube fame shall have to wait. But he was generally very floppy and cute and drowsy and kept saying, "Mommy, my head is too heavy for me to hold up."

Then the doctor's assistant came out to get him, and when she took him out of KB's lap and carried him back through the waiting room door it was all I could do not to tackle her and run away with him. Thankfully, I restrained myself. The actual surgery only took about half an hour, and then they were calling us back to get him. He was sitting in the assistant's lap looking very flushed and tired, but he seemed in good spirits. We got to quiz the doctor on all our post-op concerns, and he was very reassuring, almost blase about it all. The newly stabilized tooth should hopefully last Pickle another year or two, and the adult tooth behind it looks pretty healthy, just a little crooked from the injury. We got a souveneir x-ray to take home with us, and Nolan got a bunch of stickers and a balloon.

We went home and made him a strawberry milkshake, and then he slept for five hours straight. We woke him up for dinner, he ate heartily including ice cream for dessert and then didn't want to go back to bed. So he was up late again, but he still woke up at 6:30 this morning. Perhaps he shall take another nap today...

So he's good. I am immensely relieved, and I feel like now Doodle can come whenever he wants and I won't care because this giant nerve-wracking experience is behind us.

In other news, we decided to do our part to support the crumbling US economy and buy a second car. I was kind of bummed out about it, because we'd done so well for so long with one car, but the public transportation options here in Richmond are sadly pretty limited. KB rides his bike to work as often as he can (which is usually when he works downtown, about 2-3 days a week) but there's no safe way for him to get to his other worksite on the bike. The second car will eliminate a lot of the stress and hassles caused by us having to drop KB off and pick him up on those days - we were eating dinner late because I'd have to stop whatever cooking I was doing to go get KB, and then Nolan was getting to bed late. Or we'd be out at the playground and I'd decide to just drop by to see if KB was ready since we were already out with the car, and then KB would feel all stressed if he wasn't done with work since we were sitting there waiting for him. You know, that kind of crap.

So we are now the proud owners of a used 2007 Honda Accord, a nice, safe, reliable family sedan. We've moved Nolan's car seat over to the right hand side and put Doodle's new car seat on the left side. We have yet to transfer the James Brown and Jazz for Kids cds to the Honda - we'll see how long we can hold him off.

Also-

I keep meaning to mention how, when we were watching Obama's inauguration on TV, Nolan asked me if they were going to play "Funky President." This is hilarious, I think, but not so unlikely when you consider that that is the only song he knows with the word "president" in the lyrics, so all the talk of our new president this and our new president that surely brought the association to mind for him. I responded that I thought that would be cool, but that they probably wouldn't. And, sadly, they didn't. But it would have been cool.

(I also thought, during Obama's speech when he was talking about soldiers who had given their lives for our country and he listed various places and then mentioned Khe San, somewhere out there Walter Sobchak was going, 'Right on!')

So, yeah. No baby yet. We'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading.