The day before.

So, you’d think that maybe as the surgery got closer, Elijah would get a bit more anxious about it. But no, he didn’t. I’m not going to complain about that at all, though.

We wanted to make the day special in some way, but at the same time we were quite worried about messing anything up, so we also wanted to be quite cautious. In the end, the day was pretty normal.

We started out with a normal breakfast, which you can see in the video below. (Note: this cereal had already been sitting in front of Elijah for probably 20 minutes or so. Sometimes he just likes to talk more than eat… sometimes?)

After that, it was playing at home for a while. Julia and I had a lot of things to get done, so the kids played by themselves as we were a bit busy doing other things. Around lunch time, though, it was time for the weekly trip the Grandma and Grandpa Rice’s shop. But this wasn’t just any trip. This was the day Elijah got to see his new cushions for his wheelchair! Thank you Julie for your wonderful work!

We stuck with our normal routine for lunch and afternoon rest time, but decided to go out for a special dinner. And nothing says special like IHOP! Ok, maybe it’s not the funnest place in the world, but taking him to a cesspool of germs like Peter Piper Pizza or Chuck-e-Cheese just seemed a little to risky the night before surgery. And hey, kids eat free at IHOP… plus we all happen to think it’s pretty delicious (not an ad for IHOP!). Elijah had invited Grandma and Grandpa Rice to join us, and they joined us for a great dinner.

Then we headed home. I figured it was the last night to use his legs for a while, so we should make good use of the time. It was either going for a walk/bike ride, or going swimming. At 7:30, it was still around 105 degrees out, so swimming it was! The kids love swimming, and they’re getting pretty good at it too. Here are a few clips from our dip tonight.

(*running around pools is bad, don’t try this at home)

After that, it was time to wash up, including cleaning Elijah with the special disinfecting wipes we were given at the hospital, get ready for bed, read a book and pray. Oh, and Elijah was pretty wired tonight, so he kept trying to get my phone and I would fight him off and tickle him. I hated to stop this time, because I knew what was coming, so I let it go on a bit longer than I normally would, to which he responded “that was a good battle!”. Yeah, it was.

When it was time to pray, and I asked Elijah what’s one thing he was thankful for today, he said that he’s thankful his surgery is tomorrow. Part of me is really happy that this is something he’s looking forward to, because it means we’ve done a good job at making it positive, but I also feel like a traitor and that we’re betraying him, because it’s not going to be fun, and he’s going to realize that. I guess that’s just the way it’ll have to work, and we’ll just keep praying for the best.

And, we’ll keep doing our best, along with the ENORMOUS help from all of you, to make this the best possible experience it can be for him. Ok, that’s all for tonight. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.