Heart friends are the best!

Luke and his heart buddy Alex had fun playing together this morning at Alex's house. Alex's mama and I had fun chatting and watching the boys play. Okay, that's not entirely truthful. It was more that we had fun chatting while we protected Alex from Luke's wrestling moves and picked up shards of a drinking glass Luke broke.

You are the epitome of a gracious host, Dana!

Luke and Alex sharing a seat.

How sweet is Alex? He's giving Luke some love here.

Luke and Alex have very similar hearts, both diagnosed with double inlet left ventricle and both are seen at Northwest Children's Heart Center. Would you ever be able to tell these boys have had FIVE surgeries between them?

We look forward to many more play dates in the future!

Fun, except for the drums

The Puyallup Fair opened yesterday. Three weeks of rides, scones and oh, the traffic. Don't get me wrong, I love the fair. Once. Maybe twice a year. My husband, on the other hand, could go every day. Maybe twice a day.

On opening day, you can follow a cattle drive parade into the fair for free before noon. Luke and I took advantage of their generosity, wishing it extended to ride tickets. We hit the train, the track cars (three times) and the canoes. He loved the rides, I loved watching him love them. I also loved Purell.




The fair's theme this year is, "The Big Fantastic". I like it, but Luke would like to amend it to read, "The Fair Would Be Even More Fantastic if You Eliminated the Marching Bands".

Small beans

I spent the first half of today discouraged. After another failed attempt to leave Luke in the gym nursery, I was feeling frustrated that this is not something he can do yet and ill-equipped to help him jump this hurdle. I don't know exactly why this hit me hard today. Maybe it's because I want him to be comfortable in many social settings, to be secure in new environments. More, I think it highlights for me the fact that we weren't able to do some of the more "normal" things with Luke — like putting him in the church or gym nursery — in his early life.

The first half of the day I wrestled with whether to continue to push Luke in this area with the cold and flu season approaching, and fought thoughts that he is missing important socialization skills.

Then I logged onto my computer and checked on some blog friends.

Mason's family has just learned that because of stenotic left pulmonary veins, he is not a candidate for a necessary heart transplant.

Moriah's mom and dad, after 10 months in the hospital with their daughter, were looking forward to going home next week. Now Moriah has yet another infection, this time pneumonia.

My little pity party suddenly didn't seem so inviting. So I'm leaving that party and heading home to the two-year-old miracle waiting for me there.