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| Pensacola Downtown Christmas Parade, 2012 |
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| HT-28 Party with Kristin |
I’m impressed every time we see the Downtown Pensacola Christmas Parade. It’s always more than I expected or remembered. Chris and I watched about half an hour of bead-flinging and merriment before heading a couple miles north to the HT-28 Squadron Christmas Party, which was a really fun time with friends and the hands-down worst food I’ve ever had at a restaurant: mushy, bitter broccoli; turkey that was dry (Kristin’s), under-cooked (Chris’) and just right (mine); green gravy with swirls of unappetizing white curds.
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| HT-28 Squadron Christmas Party |
We also got to see our college friends Rob and McKay for lunch at Dharma Blue and brunch at Polonza Bistro—eating out multiple times in a weekend (even if it did involve green, curdy gravy)?! Wow, we haven’t done that in months! Plus Captain Goodbaby had fun seeing their tiny baby, so that was great.
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| After the CAT scan |
The rest of the week was kind of awful. Monday the Captain had an echo/heart ultrasound where the doc said he was pretty sure he saw an arterial coarctation = baby heart surgery. Life-changing moment. Tuesday, Chris had to make an emergency landing, get carted back to base and go straight to medical for an evaluation (he’s fine). Wednesday we lost Jesus (from the Goodbaby’s Little People Nativity…he still hasn’t turned up) and ended with a poorly-patched up emotional train wreck while giving a short talk at a thing. Ugh. Thursday, I hosted the OCF ladies’ cookie exchange, which was fun.
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| At least I got a Happy Meal out of it. |
Friday was Isaac’s baby CAT scan, which meant he couldn’t eat ALL MORNING, and then it got delayed, so we had a little thangry (tired-hungry-angry) Goodbaby on our hands (but doing really well, considering). I held him in my arms while they administered the knock-out gas, then some old guy told me all about his health history while I was in the waiting room. Chris got back from getting Isaac’s post-scan snack from the car and took over listening about triple bypass blah blah blah until we were called back for the Captain’s wake-up. Some nurse took this opportunity to tell us all about her son’s surgery 15 years ago and blah blah blah. Thankfully Isaac saved us by waking up then. He fussed twice, then curled up in my arms and drank all his juice, ate a bunch of grapes and was very happy and very sleepy the rest of the day.
“I feel a lot better about everything now,” Chris said on the way home.
“Because several people said it was probably nothing?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “even if it means surgery, I just have peace about it now, you know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s probably because we asked half the planet to pray for us this morning.”
“Oh yeah,” Chris said.
A couple hours later the Goodbaby’s doc called. “We were able to get really good pictures,” he said. “It’s exactly what we were concerned about. I am recommending surgery. We’ll get a second opinion, but I’m pretty sure they’ll agree.” I asked questions and took notes, thinking about what questions Chris and our families would ask later and putting them to the doc, who was patient and unhurried. Anytime I stopped focusing I started feeling like barfing. This surgery has a lower risk than an appendectomy or a tonsilectomy, but it really doesn’t reassure me much as soon as I remember we’re talking about heart surgery on Captain Goodbaby.
But you know, “…we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You” (2 Chronicles 20:12).
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| It’s a helicopter. |
Anyway, to erase hungry memories of Friday morning, we took Captain Goodbaby to see Santa again at the Peter Prince Airport Santa Fly-In. He enjoyed Santa so much last time, right??
Chris took our little guy on a totally fun ‘airplane’ ride. I kept giggling about all the guys stuffed into the tiny oil drums with their tots.
One of the ladies in charge said, “If you think seeing the guys get in is funny, wait until you see them try to get out. I’ve only seen one mom go in there—it’s always the dads who want to ride.”
But how’s this for a surprise—Chris and the Captain in a Coast Guard drum?! Oh, Chris.
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| Nope. |
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| Happy Family 2012!! |
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| This trip to a boring home supply store made up for Scary Santa Returns, don’t you think? |