One of the cool things we did on vacation was travel back in time. Big Sam took Luke, Zeke and me on a short drive in the van, and simultaneously 240-280 million years back in time to the early Permian period.
We stepped out of the van and onto an area littered with Dimetrodon fossils, including teeth, vertebrae, sail spine fragments, etc. We spent the whole morning rummaging around, looking at nice examples of lizard parts, and wondering what life was like for these animals.
Zeke was especially into it, and had a great eye for picking the fossils out of the thousands of normal rocks that lay about. Luke, being three, was as much interested in running, jumping and sliding as he was in ancient lizard parts. 
We are home again, having arrived after a long drive on Thursday. Poor Zeke is having a tough time of it. He spent the night in the hospital last night. His incision had become infected and needed a cleansing and debridement. He’s home now; thank God it’s the weekend.
What a rough two weeks for him. We are all ready to turn a corner.
That’s a paraphrased line from an old Guy Clark song. The first half of that couplet is “He ain’t going nowhere, he’s just leavin’…” It’s paraphrased because I think it was written about a woman, not a man. But, in this case it applies to Zeke, who didn’t have your run-of-the-mill stomach bug after all, but a perforated appendix.
It was a scary experience for a six-year-old, I’m sure. He’s held up well, though, and has done everything asked of him, including drinking that nasty barium milkshake. He shook the surgeon’s hand, looked him in the eye and talked to him man-to-man. He’s a trooper, that kid. Looks like he’ll be in the hospital for three or four days, then we can start to think about going home.
Zeke, my hat’s off to you, buddy. Rest easy tonight.
We were supposed to leave for home today, but Zeke came down with a stomach bug yesterday afternoon. Looks like we’ll be here at least through today. Poor kid…it’s a shame that his trip, which he enjoyed so much, gets capped off with a couple of days of misery. I would take it on for him in a heartbeat if I could.
We are in Wichita Falls, visiting Mary’s family. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and I woke up tonight –this morning, rather– about 4 a.m. Yech.
I’ve spent much of the last several days hunched over the laptop, moving the havards.org site to its new home, consolidating its three separate blogs onto one database, etc., so I’m sort of saturated, but there’s not much else to do at this time of day. The house is so dark and quiet.
Zeke spent a week up here, and ran out to greet us as we drove up. He missed us as much as we missed him, though it wasn’t apparent when we called every night. Mom and Luke both got big hugs up front; I just got a high-five. Later, though, he came sneaking up and plopped down in my lap for some snuggle time, as I knew he would. Six-year-old boys can be conscientious about hugging on their dads.
The weather has been hot and dry here, practically a drought. Our presence has helped a little in that regard; it’s rained twice since we’ve been here. We must be lucky that way; last year we brought a flood.
I think maybe I’ll step outside and sit on the front porch…watch the sky lighten up and drink some coffee. People will be getting up and around soon, and this silence I’m enduring now will soon be a memory. I should savor it. Maybe it’s a gift, not a burden.
This site is switching hosts (yay Cornerhost!), and I’m taking the opportunity to make some changes. Like a lot of things in our life right now, it’s kinda in flux. Hopefully we’ll emerge from the process with a focused, fun place to keep track of all of our other changes and goings-on. 
