A night in the Reese Family household:

8 p.m. After four books, two trips downstairs for drinks and a fruitless search for a stuffed toy, the kids are in bed.
9 p.m. I realize they’re asleep - and I’m still there. I crawl into my own bed.
10:15 p.m. Son comes in asking for water (his enlarged tonsils mean he breaths through his mouth a lot and is thirsty). He crawls into the twin mattress next to our queen (placed there while we remodel his room).
11:14 p.m. Dog wakes up me and Mr. Reese, barking at some unknown threat outside - at least to her. We get out of bed to investigate. I hear two people talking. Go to bed. We ask our pug, “Please go to sleep!”
12:55 a.m. Daughter wakes up coughing. Continues this for 20 minutes. A drink doesn’t help. A breathing treatment doesn’t help. She finally coughs so hard that mucus ends up all over me, the bed and the pillow.
She wants a shower. So do I.
1:35 a.m. Shower done (and we’ve woken up everyone else because we don’t have doors on our bathrooms right now as we’re remodeling). She’s wide awake. We read a book.
2 a.m. I’m guessing I’m asleep.
3:15 a.m. Two cats outside start to fight. Dog starts to bark. Repeat 10:15 p.m. events.
6:59 a.m. Son gets up. Daughter comes downstairs. No more coughing.
Thank goodness it’s Friday.

I know this sounds funny, but, here it goes: I had to tell my son’s teacher I couldn’t come to class today because of the president.

President Obama’s visit today meant that I would be at Dobson High School all morning. My original plans were to start the day talking to my son’s kindergarten class about the job of being a journalist. Now, I have a bit more to tell them about my job. The class has been talking about “community helpers” and what jobs different people have in the world. After the presidential inauguration, the students learned about Barack Obama. I’m hoping to share the excitement of the day with them later this week.

Well, the doctor called. Actually, his messaging service called. One of those, “Dial this number to hear a message from your doctor.” The results of my son’s sleep study show he has severe sleep apnea and stops breathing several times a night. So his doctor, really REALLY wants to take out his tonsils. I don’t know how else to describe the message. It was a rather urgent-sounding tone that he used. We’ve been debating it for more than a year. But until the sleep study was done, we had nothing concrete to base the decision. He doesn’t sleep well at night. He complains about being tired a lot (unusual I think for a 6 year old) and he makes lots of noises at night (not really snoring, but more like gurgling in his throat).
I’m of course apprehensive about surgery. It will require an overnight visit in the hospital. And it will knock him down for the count for several days, during spring break no less.

I don’t know any moms who have had to do this - well, I did but she moved several states away and I can’t contact her about it. From what I’ve ready and heard, it’s rather routine. Come in, get knocked out, and 20 minutes later you wake up with a sore throat. But still - it’s surgery and anesthesia. If I so wanted, I’m sure I could see videos of this on YouTube (no thank you!)

Photospin

My son and I spent Saturday night at a local sleep clinic. After years of him wandering from bed to bed, kicking whomever he happened to be next to, along with the added worry about enlarged tonsils, his ENT sent us there.
Wow, how times have changed.
I suffer from night terrors. Those of you not familiar with that, be grateful. It really freaks out my kids and husband.
I underwent a sleep study years ago. I still remember the setting: clinical, white tile; a glass window where the technicians could view me; and a large camera overhead.
This was nothing like that.
We walked into the warm, inviting room and were greeted with Nickelodeon on the television. The queen-size bed was plush with gold pillows, covering and splashes of jewel tones. There was nothing medical about the room except the small white box for oxygen on the night table and a small place to connect wires.
“Are we on vacation?” my son asked. Not exactly, I told him.
We had already talked about how they were going to connect him up to a bunch of wires while he watched a movie, then we would read a book and go to sleep.
He wasn’t too thrilled about the wires, but once we got there, he didn’t seem to mind at all.
We put on “Wonder Pets” and the technician got to work. We put wires two on my son’s feet, two on his chest, 10 on his head, four on his face and two straps around his belly.
He fell asleep before I finished the second book.
While the technician in the morning didn’t reveal much about what happened the night before (I didn’t know we were being risen at 6 a.m.!), he did say my son sat up several times during the night and kicked his legs 64 times.
He about fell off the bed once.
What this all means in terms of whether or not his tonsils need to be removed (the ENT’s concern was sleep apnea), I won’t find out for several weeks.
I don’t want to put him through surgery if it’s not completely needed. But I do know several moms who have said their children have slept better after the surgery.
We’ll just have to wait and see.

I gave up a bit of my identity a few months back. But I can only admit to now embracing it.
After more than 20 years of wearing contact lenses, I’ve given up. There, I said. Outloud.
I used to be able to see a book held to my nose without wearing glasses, but not any longer.
I tried to make the relationship work. I took them on my vacation with me in August and wore them just about every day.
I did pull the contact lenses out once in the fall to wear to my son’s football game. It was a windy day.
It sealed their fate.
Though I’ve had glasses on my face everyday since, I did put them aside for our family Christmas picture in December.
But this weekend, I did not. During a photo session with my daughter, they remained in place.
Gone are the days of juggling my kids in the morning and trying to get them on without struggles. Gone are the purchases of lubricant and cleaner. And there is quite a bit of freedom found. My sister had that vision-correcting surgery, but I’m took much of a chicken.