Carrying on

It is now a month since Nel was diagnosed; and I would guess about 3 weeks or so since the actual surgery. Though I suppose I should count from the day of the second surgery, since that one seems to have had a much greater effect on her healing than the first one -- even though all they did was, well, open her up and close her up again.

She is still in hospital, healing albeit slowly. She is plagued with assorted complications, all of which are minor in themselves but their continuance means that she will not be sent home until they are cleared up. It appears her blood sugar is not yet stable; her body is still draining too much lymphatic fluid from the wound; she has a sort of continuing low grade fever and she is anemic.

We have been visiting in the evening this week, mainly because the kids were out of school the whole week and so the morning and afternoon has been taken up with, well, keeping them busy. It's been a fun week, we planted not one, not two, but three sets of flowers -- mine upstairs, (which is ongoing as you know), Nel's downstairs, and we biked over and did Spring cleanup at Opa's grave. Yesterday we went to that playground/restaurant where we had Douwe's birthday last year -- they had a moon walk shaped like a mushroom this time, so the boys spent the entire time slamming each other into the walls. Well, that's what they do at home too but at least this time the walls were padded. And they played at a friend's house on Tuesday for the afternoon -- he is in Douwe's class but is friendly enough with Daan that Daan went to his house by himself a little whicle ago because Douwe was not in the mood. He is almost exactly between them in age, and their sharing him has worked out nicely so far.

Douwe has become intensely interested in earning pocket money. I won't pay him for regular cleaning up, this seems to me to go nowhere good. So he came up with the idea of putting the bicycle cart behind his bike and hauling groceries and so on. I considered charging him rent for the cart, but decided that the lesson about the cost of doing business could wait for later. He has twice hauled my groceries home behind his bike this week. Oh, and Daan also. That is, Daan wanted to ride his bike but I was not prepared to supervise him and Douwe on the first day with the cart -- it makes cornering a little tricky. So I told him he had to sit behind me in the kid seat. He did not like this idea so Douwe proposed that Daan ride in the cart. I figured he would change his tune after a trip or so, but no. They think it's great fun so Douwe is also hauling Daan all over town behind his bike.

Daan also insists on working for money, because Douwe is, he hasn't really got a clue and is still in the "more coins = more money" phase. But he very seriously carried the basket through the grocery store and put things in it when I told him to. Okay, he also added one or two small things, *ahem*. He refused to play "catch me" with Douwe in the store this week because "Douwe, can't you see I am working?".

I was going to get them savings banks for their new wages, but they tell me everybody keeps their money in a wallet. So I guess I had better find some kids' wallets.

Today we went sailing for the first time this year, the weather was lovely. We left at the crack of noon -- kidding, we left before that -- to get back in time for visiting. The kids wanted to bring Oma a battered-and-fried fish called a lekkerbekkie, of which she is inordinately fond but were convinced that the doctors woudl nto like it. (She is now on a special diet which involves restricting fats almost entirely, so I think fried fish is right out).

Anyway, here they are today:





The hat, for the curious, is because he is a famous race car driver. Obviously.