Porter's Traveling Harmonica Show

I was about to upload this video to Facebook, but then I decided it was worthy of its own blog post. It's less than a minute long, but here are some things to watch for:

• Continued blowing minus the harmonica
• A brief, yet incomprehensible mid-song introduction by the artist
• An up-turned chair
• Exit over the back of the couch

In other news, we went to a going away party for the niece of Sitka's favorite watercolor artist, Keith Greba, on Saturday. Ashleigh is going to college in Georgia and spent this summer in Sitka, working at Sea Life Discovery Tours, learning to paint under Keith's instruction, helping Keith stage his house for sale (which sold in under an hour of listing!), and occasionally coming upstairs to visit with me at work.

While we were at Keith's place, though, Porter was sitting in a folding camp chair on the deck out back and one of the legs of the chair fell off of the 12" deck, landing Porter on a pile of rocks with the chair on top of him. At first glance, he was fine, if not a little shocked by the fall, with only a bitten tongue. After a few moments, another person pointed out that there was blood on Porter's forehead. Sure enough, there was a 1/4" long puncture wound in his head, presumably from the chair falling on top of him. Stephen took him inside and cleaned him up and we put some ice on his head for swelling. There wasn't much blood and I wasn't all that worried, but we decided to leave the party early and take him to the doc for a once-over, bracing ourselves for this trip to include a couple of stitches.

If I haven't said it enough already, I absolutely love the doctors out here. I called ahead to the emergency room and they ordered Porter's chart while I was on the phone. Then, I went directly into the emergency room and announced my presence. The records clerk dropped off Porter's chart right after me and I was asked if I checked in up front. No, I didn't, but the nurse called up front and checked us in so we wouldn't have to backtrack. Within about 2 minutes, we were sitting on a bed and a nurse was fetching some baby shampoo and wet gauze to clean the wound. The longest part of our visit was waiting for the doctor to arrive, as he was on-call from another department (presumably Maternity, since all of our OBs are family practice doctors). He asked me what happened, checked Porter over in a thorough-yet-casual manner, and commented on how charming he is. The doc then told me that the cut was not in a place that warranted concern about scarring, that head-wounds rarely see infection, but to keep it clean and dry and go on as normal. The only reversal he had on this opinion was that I was to call him if Porter started vomiting. That was it--a quick swab with Bacitracin and a shiny new bottle of ibuprofen, and we were on our way home.

Keith and his wife, Martha, were both very concerned for Porter and have kept up with his healing progress over the last few days. Porter, on the other hand, has not shown the slightest bit of concern for his head since about 15 minutes after the accident took place and he and his sister are back to rough-housing as normal.

just a quick hello

Today I'm home with the kids because our babysitter called out sick. I spent my morning filling out long-overdue paperwork to get Porter's CDIB and replace Seren's card. The rest of my day will be spent cleaning up various messes and trying to steal a nap at some point, before loading the kids up in the car and heading out to pick up some items I dropped off at the jeweler for repair and then to MEHS to have dinner with Stephen and our group of students in the school cafeteria.

Last week was the first Extended Family Night at MEHS, where we had a chance to meet our group (most of them, anyway), try the cafeteria fare, and view the chaos that is Family Night first-hand. It was fun. We have a pretty good group of kids and Seren immediately made friends with one of the girls, who ended up taking her through the line to get her plate and helping her eat all of her food. This ritual will continue to take place every other Thursday night at the place of our choice (our home, the cafeteria, a restaurant, or whatever). On one hand, it's a relief not to have our own home set up for 10 kids every Wednesday night, but I do miss the personal aspects of Advisee Dinner. I only hope that we are able to build similar relationships with these kids. That said, any of our Orme kids who are reading this can rest assured that we miss you terribly and that Seren still talks about all of you. You'll always be family.

Speaking of our kids, Seren and Porter are doing very well. Seren still surprises me with how smart she is and Porter is developing into quite a little person. Porter is currently cutting the last of his first year molars, but seems to be handling it well, aside from an upset belly. Seren is starting to learn phonics and draws associations to that in almost everything she does. She spent the whole morning at the dining table looking at the pictures on her placemat, saying things like "Baseball. B-b-b-baseball." She's a smart cookie. Porter still isn't walking, but he is loving his walker. He zooms around the house at top speed on his own, but he loves it when Seren pushes him around. They play so well together.

I'm afraid that's all the updates I have for now. The last Sitka Farmer's Market of the season will be on Saturday, so we are looking forward to being there. The last cruise ship will dock on the 29th, so I don't expect to be working past that point. We are definitely starting to feel like this is our home now. We're still unpacking and settling in, but Sitka is a good place for us. I just hope this winter will be as easy as everyone says. :)