This man right here...

Single-handedly kept the first day of school in Macau from being an unmitigated disaster.

How, you ask? Well first he got up early. Popped awake, by himself, and got ready for school with a smile on his face. He ate his pancakes and liked even the runny syrup. He wanted to take some pictures. He practically led the way out the door and on the elevator. He got a little nervous watching his sister struggle (I'm understating here) to follow her class upstairs. And then he went to his own class, no problem.

Mom needed him to step up, and did he ever. Let's review the previous couple of days, to see why this was important.

Three evenings ago, dad cooked some cutting-edge (read: untested) Chinese-ish food involving meat that none of us had ever had (pork neck?). Strangely that night, whether related or not, Leah was up all night sick every 30 minutes. Ian followed suit, as did Abby. So we had a sick day, no big deal, followed by a more or less un-sick day. Yesterday afternoon, we all got out for along walk in Macau for final school prep. Then last night, Cade got sick. For those of you keeping score, that's 2 of 3 essentially sleepless nights for mom, right before the first day of school in a foreign country; does anyone not see where this is going? By the way, Dad gets up too. However, on realizing that mom will not sleep anyway, he goes back to bed trying to be somewhat capable in the morning.

Cade was way too under the threshold of well-being to go today, at all. Leah got sick in the morning again. Abby's a nervous wreck and crying, won't eat. The whole walk to school is a struggle, and she's crying and just about didn't follow her class. It's a train wreck, but in the middle of that train wreck is a 56-lb toe-headed hero who is ready and excited for Kindergarten - come what may.

And that's one reason why we love our kids. We don't have tons of sick days and other disasters, and first days of school in foreign countries are rare. However, when events do take a nasty turn, at least one of them is ready to show us all how it's done; today that one was my man Ian "E-doo" "Thomas Jefferson" "Spiderman" "Car Guy" Kisebach, to whom we owe tremendous gratitude.