Have a Heart

First of all, please send all good thoughts and prayers for my Daddy over the next few weeks. It turns out that he had a mild heart attack on Saturday (he had a big one about 6 years ago too), and he's been in the hospital since then. He had a stent put in after his last heart attack and underwent chelation treatments which definitely helped and served their purpose at the time. But now, after the tests that they've been running, they've determined that he's going to need at least a double-bypass this time. Right now it looks like the surgery will be on Thursday, but we should know more tomorrow. He's not a huge fan of being cut open (but, who is... unless it's for a c-section, then I am) so he's pretty nervous about it, but he seems to know that it's what's best right now so it looks like that is the plan. So, please send good thoughts for my Mom to have the strength to help my Dad with what he needs right now and to get the rest that she needs to keep going, and for my Dad to have a successful surgery, quick recovery, and peace of mind throughout the whole thing!

On a happy note, Keith presented at JavaOne (probably the largest Java conference in existance, put on by Sun Microsystems) again this year, and, once again, kicked butt! :) He had a session with nearly 1000 attendees and he "nailed it"! I hate that it's been so long since I've been able to attend one of his sessions because it's so cool to watch him "do his thing". He's such a great speaker! Even though I couldn't be there, I love to hear about his success and know that he's out there representin' like the Java Rockstar that he is! Yea Keith! I'm so proud of you!

Aside from being concerned about "Papa" today, Annabelle and I had a fun day with my friend Jill (my BFF from high school) and her son Jackson (2 months younger than Belle). They are here visiting with us for a few days. The kids are so cute together and seem to have very similar personalities. The first half of the day we struggled with getting both kids to eat and to nap, but once we got that out of the way, we had a fun-filled afternoon/evening of Belle's swimming lesson, dinner and playtime at Chick-fil-A, and playing with the toys at Toys R Us. Despite her screaming through practically the entire lesson, Belle did well at her swimming lesson today. Last week she didn't get her head wet, so it wasn't too bad (for me), but today she had her first test of holding her breath, which is super-scary to watch as a mother. She did fine, but it's still scary. She was dunked (well, not really dunked as much as she let her go under the water) a couple of times while the instructor watched to make sure she was holding her breath properly, then once she verified that, the instructor let her go under water and reach to grab the side of the pool on her own. Belle did it, but was still kinda freaked out by it. My job in the whole process is to stand on the sidelines and encourage Annabelle with a big smile on my face, but it was SOOO hard when she was screaming "Mama" and kept signing "all done" over and over again. I didn't notice this, but Jill said that after a while Belle must have realized that her mama wasn't going to save her because she started yelling "Dada"! Ugh... heartbreaking, but I know that's how it'll be no matter what age she is when taking lessons, so might as well do it now. Sigh.