My Mum's spent an inordinate amount of time in the Cleveland Clinic this spring. She went in on Feb 28th to have a bowel resection (yum!), which initially went really well. Then she managed to get some sort of infection which boiled up (literally, again, YUM!) every week or so and caused her to hurry herself BACK to the Cleveland Clinic. We all got pretty used to the lovely drive to Cleveland, and enjoyed marking the increasing signs of spring everytime we went. The first trip, in February, was during a driving snow storm. The latest (and hopefully last) gave us a chance to enjoy the blooms and blossoms of Spring as we drove through Amish country. Quite nice of the old girl to give us a chance to get out and about, but we're quite hoping she'll STOP giving us excuses to gallavant around the countryside now, too.
Much of the time I got to do the drive myself while Mike and Jack stayed home. Even the Cleveland Clinic with its miles of tunnels and skywalks and the thrill of a Nanny attached to various bits of tubing isn't enough to make a 5 year old think much of a hospital -- not for long, anyway. But Jack loves his Nanny, and there's no medicine in the world like a visit from a grandson, so a few times our whole family made the trek. Nanny and Jack both lit up when they saw each other. Jack had a quite heart-racing search for the "monster" making the noise behind the curtain (turned out to be Nanny's room-mate snoring.) Jack became quite advanced at operating the elevators (it's a hobby.) And we managed to get infected by zombies in the basement (well, not really, but if you'd been there you'd have understood. If there's a place more likely to house zombies than the basement of the Cleveland CLinic, I don't know what it could be. Nanny and I were trying not to let on how creepy it was, but neither one of us fancied getting out of the lift. If ever called on to prove a moment of good-momhood, I will recount the fact that I did get out of the lift to retrieve Jack from the hallway, and WOULD have sacrificed myself to the zombies had they shown up. Luckily for me, they did not!)
After a bit of playing around which included accidentally taking Mum to the palliative care ward (whoops!!), and gave me to opportunity to explain in detail to Jack exactly why we do not run or yell in the palliative care wing, Mike (who, as usual, deserves Dad of the Millenium status) took Jack off to enjoy a day around Cleveland while Mum and I nattered away about whatever it is that came to mind. Highlights of their day include finding a big ship down on the docks, chasing around outside the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame and (possibly the biggest highlight in Jack's mind) sliding down a slide that had a large muddy puddle at the end and having the bums to show for it.
Ahhh, yes, almost forgot. Jack really loves to take pictures. He particularly likes it if you pretend to be dead or make a funny face or what have you. So, as Daddy took out the camera to show Nanny what the two of them had been doing all day, Jack asked to take pictures. Here are the lovely one he took of Nanny, and then mine. No, wait, I mean, the zombie.
Jack, being both a polite and an honest young man, when he saw me looking at this photo today, just laughed a tiny bit under his breath. Do you know who that is, I asked. Yes, it's you, he said, completely deadpan, as if there were nothing in the least bit wrong with the photo. Do you like it, I said. Oh, yes, he said. Then he paused a moment, Kinda creepy, actually, he said. Gotta love that kid!!
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