Back in time... April in Newport

I am back from my trip to France and after dealing with a pretty bad jetlag for a week, Maman has decided to go back in time and finally archive some of the pictures from the last 4 months.
SO here is the first of 9 videos, yes 9...

In this video, I visit Newport and its aquarium and I make a special trip to OMSI to see the Submarine with Papa on father's day.
Aquarium+ Submarine+ OMSI... I am in Heaven!

My first stage performance

This past Thursday I made my big debut on stage.
Our performance was called "No title" and me and 16 of my friends had fun dancing in front of over 300 people.
Now, we rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed prior to the performance and the teachers helped us come up with a choreography. Sure it was good, but as you will see in the video, I like to spice things up a little and I added my little touches here and there.
You need to know though that the teachers were not in front telling us when to switch from one move to the other so we need to be commended for listening to the music pretty well and knowing when to switch to the new move. Ok, it got a little bit chaotic at the end but overall, we did good.

You might notice that I seem to be about a head smaller than all the other ones. Sure, I am not growing fast, but all my friends have been 4 for quite a while now and I and two other girls are the only ones turning 4 later on this Summer.
Now you know everything so, enjoy the show!

Where have I been?

Bonjour!

Do you want to know where I have been? Well, you did miss the episode of me going to Newport to see the aquarium but that will come at some point if Maman figures out how to get more hours in a day.

The story of my first year in preschool though has been a lot about my ears. Out of 10 months, I managed to be on antibiotics 7 times for ear infections until we all decided that enough was enough. My left ear tube was plugged so there was nothing to be done but change it.

We went back to the guy who did my first surgery but the poor guy had to have surgery for himself the day of my appointment. That was road block number 1. We then found another doc who recommended we remove the old tubes, place new ones in and while we were at it, remove my enlarged and often inflamed adenoids. The surgery was scheduled for May 26. I woke up that morning, got the only liquid I was allowed to have and asked to go back to bed… unusual… I got up 30 minutes later and the apple juice came back out. It turned out that I also had a fever of 102.4. A quick call to the anesthesiologist and the guy wisely decides to cancel the surgery. Road block number 2.

Well, by May 28 , after 2 days of high fever and hives all over my body, I was diagnosed with strep throat and scarlet fever also known as scarlatine. And here comes yet another round of antibiotics… and the surgery is rescheduled for June 10.

I get all better, go back to school, go back to my silly, goofy, lots of time-out mode and then, the antibiotics stop. That was June 6. That’s when Papa realized that we were supposed to give the antibiotics 2 times a day. See, my numerous previous rounds of antibio were always once a day and Maman did not even check. By June 8, I looked kind of funny and my teacher had to call Maman that morning to report a fever. Back to the doc who diagnosed that the strep throat was not gone and that yes, it could be because of Maman’s mistake but also because that particular antibiotic does not always work for strep. Great. A quick call to the surgeon: if the fever is still high on the 9^th, surgery will be canceled… Nooooooooooooooooooooooo…. Road block number 3.

On the 9^th , my fever is completely gone and I have a big breakfast, a sure sign that I am back to normal and ready to go to school. It also means that we get a green light for the surgery.

So finally, June 10 is here and we nearly had a road block number 3: I certainly knew that I was supposed to be on a liquid diet until 6:30am; as Maman was taking her shower and Papa was eating his breakfast, I sneaked in the pantry, closed the door and opened the bag of raisins. Luckily, Papa heard the noise I made with the bag and arrived just in time to remove from my mouth the handful of raisins I had shoved in there before I was able to swallow any... This was a close call... So, at 8:30am, to the hospital we go. By 10:00am they gave me the “happy” medicine and I gradually feel on a cloud. They rolled me in at 10:30am for a 35 minute procedure. I had told the parents that I would keep my eyes open during the entire surgery but, after inhaling the watermelon gas, I was gone for a while… By 11:25am, Maman was a wreck since this was a lot more than 35 minutes. By 11:30am they finally heard that everything went well and I was waking up in the recovery room. By 11:45am a nurse came to get the parents since I was having a tough time with the waking up process.

It turned out that I had what they call pediatric emergence delirium. Yes, it’s the delirium part that is interesting. I was screaming, thrashing and throwing things, I was trying to remove my IV and mainly, I was out of it and my eyes could not even track. When I saw Maman, she became an easy target for a hitting contest: I was hitting her really hard and nobody could touch me. That was a fun time they tell me. Finally, after 15 more minutes of this, Maman wisely backed away and talked to me firmly and I gradually came around. It still took another 10 minutes until I accepted to be touched. At that point, I got scared and could not be pried away from Maman. Oh boy, that was quite an experience and it’s a good thing that I had no outside or inside stitches that could have suffered from all that thrashing around.

I fell asleep for over an hour and woke up feeling all better, my voice a little hoarse but ready to devour the orange Popsicle they gave me. And, time to go back home it was. I ate normally, slept another 3 hours, had a great dinner and a comfortable night and woke up happy this Saturday.

Well, that’s where I have been… In less than 3 weeks, I will be flying to France where we all hope that there will be no need for antibiotics… That was quite a ride…

A slice of March

March has been really, really wet and the forecast shows even more rain for the last 5 days of the month. It's getting a little old but at least I get a lot of use of my raincoat and my rubber boots.
In between the showers, I get on my bike and to the park we go... I love being a monkey and Maman is amazed that I have not yet broken any bones as I am a risk taker who often does not quite calculate the danger. As I say to Papa, I am a big boy now and I can do things that big boys can do. And big, I sure am: I grew 1/2 an inch since July of last year; I mean that's like more than 1 centimeter and Maman had to finally put the 18 months old pants in the "too small" pile.

Here is a little video for you where you can see me swim ( floating is still challenging!), sing,which never happens when the camera is on, and draw which never happens whether the camera is on or off. It's just not my thing and you will see my face when Maman suggests that I add a "net" to my drawing as to catch the "monster" that I just drew in 3 seconds.
Not every body has to be an artist you know... There are other things I like to concentrate on: I can wake up from my nap and ask to see a video of the inside of the cranial box ( in my French wording: boîte cranienne), or I ask how a space shuttle can be in "orbit"( my word) around the Earth.
I am also into reading; when Maman wanted to select whatever options she thought as healthy on the menu of the restaurant the other day, she was reading the list while showing it to me and she was passing a few items: I pointed to the word "pizza" and said "hey, you forgot "pizza", I want pizza".

Anyway, enjoy this slice of March and have a Happy Spring!

Fish... and Luge

I went to see the documentary Deep Sea at the Omnimax a few weeks ago. It was quite fascinating and I learned even more about what happens in the deep ocean.
Towards the end of the documentary, they explain how we, humans, are not having the best impact on oceans and, as a matter of fact, they said that we are responsible for the disappearance of some species. That is when, in the theater, I exclaimed out loud: "This is sad, this is very sad".

So the other day, when we were having dinner, here is a dialogue we had with Maman:
- Mmm, Tuna is delicious. I like tuna.
- Well, tuna might not like you and there is another big fish that does not like us.
- The shark? yeah, because he eats tuna. But we can leave some for him. Or I can get other fishes, some that would like to be "ate"( eaten).
- You really think that there are fish that like to be eaten.
- No.... And I am going to say to the fishermen not to fish tuna anymore. I will go in the sea and I will say: stop fishing tuna and I will not eat fish anymore. No ( crosses fingers in form of an x in front of his face).
I can get rice and bean because they make me strong too. ( he wants to say that it's a protein too).

.... Ok , sliding on to another subject now...
We went back to Bend for a very fun week-end where I got to play with my friends and where I also enjoyed more snow time. This time my friends lent us two different slides and I had a lot of fun. See for yourselves...

La planète Jute

I woke up one night because I had a nightmare/dream.
In the morning, Maman asked me about my nightmare/dream and since I told her in French, here is the translation in English.
First, you need to know that I spend my days wanting to read documentaries; right now, anything that has to do with Earth, planets and natural phenomenon is on top of my list.

- So what was your nightmare?
- I was in space... I was, I was an astronaut and I was allowed to go in space to visit the Planet Jute. Like the moon ( he means, you can visit it like you can visit the moon).
- You mean Jute or Jupiter?
- Planet Jute.
- What was on that Planet?
- Water
- You discovered another planet with water?
- Yes... two planets who were... who were in gas before but now they have water!
- So we could maybe go live on these planets?
- Yeah.

Playdate with my friend L.

Playdates are fun.
Playdates can be crazy and wild.
Playdates are the best.
Thank you for coming to my house L.