A Shout-out from Ammon...

For the past several months we’ve been missing certain wonderful little things about Ammon. We noticed little by little, that his personal interactions with us and others have been changing or completely disappearing. He hasn’t been giving us delightful shout-outs when we come home, he hasn’t been responding to specific songs that he previously loved, and certain playtime catch phrases that we use with him have exhibited limited or no response. For example, at the end of every vocal prayer right before we would say Amen, Ammon would immediately perk up and shout out a quick Amen (he would almost always beat us to the punch). Songs like “When Your Happy and You Know It” and so many others have lost their instant sweet smiles and excited hand gestures, only to be replaced with distracted stares. I used to always sing to him the notes to the “Charge” song they do at baseball games, and he would always give me a huge smile and shout-out at the charge part, but even that disappeared. Even the sound of my voice, Summer’s voice, or Maga’s voice over the phone has not had the same excited response. We realize that kids usually grow out of doing certain things, but to have everything disappear so quickly and all at once didn’t seem natural. We haven’t known what is potentially wrong, but things have changed. We’ve dearly missed our sweet Ammon’s personality, and we’ve been fearful that we would continue to lose more of it.

Over the past few months we’ve been praying with extra emphasis and faith on this, and hopefully we have the answer, or at least part of the answer. On Tuesday, Ammon went in for surgery on his ears to insert tubes and perform an ABR hearing test. The surgery required that he be sedated, and he ended up fasting till almost dinner because the surgery was delayed several hours. The surgery went well, and the doctor told us that he found a lot of thick fluid in Ammon’s ears. The doctor suctioned as much of the fluid that he could, and we are putting drops in Ammon’s ears for the next week to ensure the rest of the fluid is removed. The ABR test indicated that with the fluid removed his hearing was still in the normal range and no permanent damage had been sustained.

While we were sitting in recovery we thought we would put Ammon’s new tubes and cleaned out ears to the test. I quietly sang the notes to the “Charge” song, and at the charge part, even in his still groggy and tired state, Ammon gave a little shout-out. We hope our little Ammon is back, we have missed him so much. If you feel so inclined, please remember our little boy in your prayers. Through Ammon a lot of special blessings have happened to our family and others over the past three years, and I know those blessings will continue well into the future. Hopefully it doesn’t sound too selfish to say, but a simple little shout-out from Ammon every now and then makes me feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Valentines Day...

I was out of town this year for Valentines Day, stuck in Minneapolis for the weekend on a business trip with one of my coworkers (at least we walked away with about $800 Delta dollars for our trouble). So that Saturday we decided to spend all day shopping at Kohl’s for our beautiful wives and children. I found a ton of deals, and though most of them looked good, out of the more than dozen items I bought for Summer only 2 or 3 fit and ended up being keepers (it’s the thought that counts right). After a long day of shopping and wishing I was with Summer and the kids, we decided to fill the void with food and lots of it. Tom and I quickly realized that many normal restaurants would not be a good thing to do on Valentines day. Two guys sitting alone together at the Olive Garden putting down all you can eat soup and salad does not bode well in the manly department. After driving around for a while we finally decided to eat at a BBQ restaurant, with the thought in mind that BBQ is not exactly the most romantic dining establishment on Valentine’s Day. I mean seriously, what guy that is trying to please his wife would really suggest all you can eat ribs and cornbread as a romantic interlude (the meat stuck between the teeth and the BBQ sauce dripping off the chin and fingers is best reserved for watching a football game, not a romantic Valentine date). Trust me on this one, all you’ll get later is a stomach ache and maybe a peck on the cheek. So we confidently walked into the BBQ joint and grabbed some menus while we waited to be seated. Suddenly the host walked by with a long-stem red rose to deliver to a couple at a table. We surveyed the host’s counter and realized to our shock that there were many more roses there. Apparently every dinner purchase that night came with a free red rose delivered specially by the host. After the host walked past, Tom and I looked at each other and without a word needing to be said, we realized that are careful plans had been foiled. Left with only one real choice, we simultaneously stood up, left our menus on the counter, and bolted for the door. We ended up eating takeaway from another BBQ joint that only serves take out. And to ensure my manliness was still intact on this Valentines Day, I ended up watching a “romantic” shoot ‘em up action movie while putting down some Cold Stone. I sure missed Summer…