Dude, who puked in here?

This is a post I began a few weeks ago, but just got around to finishing today. So if you read this and think, "Hey, I was there for that -- this is old news!" bear with me please.

I walked into my bathroom yesterday and noticed something.....odd. There were little tiny orange-ish splatters on the side of the tub, and on further investigation I saw more little splatters around the toilet bowl and on the wall behind it.

My first order of business, of course, was to clean it up but while doing so I couldn't help but wonder, "Who puked in here?" and, "Why didn't he or she tell me?" Once I was finished, I went out and delicately tried to ask Chris if he had recently vomited in our bathroom. I don't want to give the impression that my husband is in the habit of sloppily puking all over the bathroom, but I couldn't quite see how one of the kids could manage without me knowing about it. Chris, as you may imagine, was surprised by the question and a little bit offended. So I went on, much like the little bird who is looking for his mother, the main difference of course being our questions. His was "Are you my Mother?" while I was asking, "Did you throw up in the bathroom?"

No-one admitted to it. After getting four individual denials, we rounded everyone up in the living room, hoping to tickle some information out of them in a group setting. Blank faces all around: no-one had any memory of recently throwing up. Looking into their little faces one by one, I saw not one trace of knowingness. I began to doubt myself; had I puked in the bathroom, could I have been the one who forgot?

The sorry truth, however, is that one member of the family had already been on a streak. She had taken a trip to Friendly's with her grandparents and turned it into one of her signature "quick, throw as much money as you can on the table and maybe they'll forgive all the vomit," exits. Two days later she puked in our yard because she was afraid of slugs. Then she went into the house in puked in the (other) bathroom. You know who this is, of course. Claire. And it is unfortunately entirely plausible that she would run into my bathroom, vomit, and then walk away as if nothing had happened. She's kind of a pro like that.

We'll never know for sure who the mystery-puker is. But I'll always have my suspicions. In the meantime I wonder: why is it that living with small children is so very much like living in a frat house???

End of an era

I finished the 7th Harry Potter book today. On first impression, I think it might be my favorite of the series. Right now, though, I'm feeling a little sad knowing that there will be no more news from the Wizarding World. I am going to miss the delight and surprise, the mystery and suspense that came with each new book.

However I suspect that there is still new joy to be found at Hogwarts, because this afternoon I found this:

Let the fun begin!

How much zucchini bread can one family possibly eat?

The bounty of the earth is stressing me out.

I totally know that it's bad to let the zucchini grow so big - the only thing it's good for at this size is bread. Lots and lots of bread. But I can't keep up with it! I swear, I'll go outside one day and see a few teeny tiny little zucchini-ettes, but the very next day they've grown so heavy that the girls can't help me carry them into the house. Aaaaurgh! Does anybody want one of my giant zucchinis? Anyone? Anyone?

I don't yet know the zucchini-bread-consuming limits for a family of 6 (or 5, really. Lucy isn't yet participating.) But I have a feeling that, by the end of the summer, that question will be solved.

Beth's first lost tooth!

Beth lost her very first tooth on Sunday! The only reason we even knew that it was loose was because Chris noticed how lopsided it had become. He called Beth over, wiggled the tooth, and realized that it was just hanging on by a thread. Beth was amazed, as she had not noticed it. Not noticed that her tooth, the one in the very front of her mouth, was about to dangle its way right out of there. So Chris, who is a serious wanna-be dentist, grabbed a paper towel and pulled it out. I was expecting a repeat of the hysterics we went through when Chris pulled Katie's first tooth (and her second, and her third....), but Beth was very stoic about the whole thing. That is, until it was time for bed.



I was outside swimming laps, when Beth apparently came sobbing down to the basement. After much eye-rubbing and gasping for breath, Chris finally got her to tell him what was wrong. The problem was that she was upset about the Tooth Fairy. The way she saw it, she had just lost her very first tooth, and she didn't want to give it away. In between sobs, she told Chris, "This is my....first tooth.....and I.....don't want to....forget it."



So Chris tucked her back into bed, a little baggie holding both her tooth and a note for the tooth fairy snuggled in her hands. The note, which I would scan in and post if I could figure out how, read:



Dear Tooh Fairy,

Pleas leave the tooh.

Thank you,

Beth



The Tooth Fairy was very kind to forgo her usual wages on this occasion. We're hoping that Beth will be able to bear parting with her next tooth.

Scary. Scaryscaryscary

Lucy's life is perpetually in danger.

I was setting things up in the basement so that I could work out on our elliptical machine. This is a somewhat painful process, as I have to make sure that all four "big girls" are settled in safe and comfortable activities where I can reasonably expect them to leave me alone for 45 min. (This never happens, actually, but I keep hoping. Someday they are bound to discover that they can make it through less than an hour without my direct intervention.) Then I have to make sure that Lucy is fed, changed, and in a safe place (usually right beside the machine.)

So I set Lucy on the couch so that I could use both hands to carry her little chair over to the elliptical machine. As I rounded the corner, not ten seconds later, what did I see? Lucy was not on the couch. Lucy was precariously (oh, so very precariously) dangling from the arms of ABBIE, who was trying to carry her across the room.

I don't know how in the world Abbie managed to muster the strength to pick Lucy up. I don't know how in the world she managed to get her off the couch. I don't know how in the world she was able to carry her halfway across the basement with those scrawny, malnourished little arms of hers. I don't know how in the world Lucy wasn't dropped on her head.

And I don't know when in the world my heart will stop racing. It looks like I owe Lucy's Guardian Angel big time.

"A hit, a very palpable hit!"

The quote is from Hamlet.

The post concerns a groundhog.

Warning! The bottom of this post contains a picture of a dead animal. A very dead animal.

You've probably guessed by now, if you've followed our groundhog saga, that.....he did it! Chris shot the groundhog! I have been planning two posts about how weird my kids are, but this is big news and needs to take precedence. Plus, it kind of fits into the "my kids are very strange" theme.

I have been worried about how the girls would react when Chris actually killed the groundhog, or rather, groundhogs since we discovered that our unwelcome visitor procreated sometime this spring. But I completely underestimated how bloodthirsty these girls are. They were absolutely thrilled by the whole thing, and not only were they not upset, they actually fought over holding the bag containing the dead groundhog. And they clearly thought very highly of Chris' gun-totin' skills. We are not raising a passel of shrinking violets here.

So the funeral was held yesterday evening for "Little Groundhog." It was a very casual affair with little fuss. The grave is marked by a treestump, located convieniently on the edge of our property. And there is plenty of room for more graves.

So here are the promised pictures! I am aware that Abbie is really trashing-up the joint, what with the no clothes thing and the sagging diaper. I actually don't even know where her clothes went, she had been wearing a very pretty little sundress, and as for the diaper - well, we were distracted by all the bloodshed going on.

Notice, though, the size of this groundhog. Yes - it is the small groundhog. The big, clearly diseased one is still at large. But not for long. There is a new sheriff in town, and he's totin' a brand-new childsize rifle from WalMart, so watch out!

We've been busy growing things

Sorry about the long silence here. I'll be putting up several new posts in the next few days.

Abbie wakes up too early

Abbie has been waking up aroun 6:30am since the daylight savings change. This is most often a painful wakeup for Chris, as he's taken over monitor duties since Lucy's birth, but last night's conversation over dinner suggests that he is not the only one suffering from the early morning sunrise.

Said Abbie, "When I wake up in the morning it makes my body hurt."

You know you've gone over to the dark side as a mother when -

You realize that you actually just said:

"If you don't go downstairs right now and watch TV, I will send you to your room!"

Crazed rant

Um. It looks like I need to just keep this space blank. When you need to revise the revision, it's time to admit that you have a problem.

Prayers for charity, which I seem to have in short supply, and direction would be appreciated.

Happy Mother's Day!

To my Mom, my Mother-in-Law, Grandma Lamb and Gram Campbell -- thank you all so much for all you do. We love you! We really do, despite the fact that we haven't acknowledged it in any way (except for here, but blogs don't really count.) Thank you for putting up with idiots like us. The cards will be in the mail on Monday, I promise!!!

Side note, to highlight the unorganized mess that is me:

We went to the noon mass today, because the 1st Communion class was invited to participate in the May Procession. So we had plenty of time to get ourselves together -- I even curled my hair! I was proud of how well we were rolling on Mother's Day: no dirty faces, every head brushed, baby clean and fed. There we were, putting our best foot forward for Mother's Day!

Getting out of the car, though, I realized that Beth had her dress on inside out. Oh well, too late to fix that, I thought. Then, as Katie left to join the other kids in their Communion clothes, I realized that I hadn't put her veil on quite right, so that a big chunk of hair was sticking up out of the crown. Just let it go, I told myself, nothing you can do about it now. Sitting down in the pew, Lucy started to fuss so I picked her up out of her carrier realizing as her cold, wrinkled little feet hit my arm that I had forgotten to put her socks on.

What is amazing, even to me, about this is not that three out of my five children were not properly dressed for mass. It's that I not only did not notice these things until after leaving the house, I was actually congratulating myself for having them so well put together! Add this to the Alzheimer's that I will almost certainly contract in my old age, and you're looking at a scary picture.

So, a happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. May you deserve the recognition more than I do!

When good groundhogs go bad

We loved our groundhog. Last year, I really enjoyed watching the little guy waddling around in the mornings, nibbling on the flowers. It gave our yard a cozy, country-ish feeling, and I really felt like the groundhog and I had a real connection, especially in our shared desire to never, never, ever actually encounter each other face to face. If I so much as tapped the window, the groundhog would dart back into his hole. We never heard so much as a rustle when we were outside. Those were nice days.

Last weekend, we noticed that the groundhog had grown bold after his winter hibernation. He mosied around the yard undisturbed while we tapped on the windows at him, and when we went outside he kept his little head poked out of his burrow entrance, watching us. This seemed strange, but we weren't really alarmed. That is, until things got creepy.

In the late afternoon last Saturday, after everybody who had come over for Katie's Communion had gone home, the groundhog decided to pay us a visit. I was upstairs, and heard Chris yell urgently for me to come down to the basement. What I saw there forever shattered my little love affair with the groundhog. He was standing in front of our basement door with his nose pressed against the glass, looking in at us. His eyes were beady and evil. Worst of all, he was covered, covered in fleas who swarmed around him as though he were the decapitated pig's head from Lord of the Flies. Chris pounded on the glass, but our sinister visitor only backed up slightly, keeping those light less eyes fixed on us. It was seriously one of the freakiest things I've ever seen. I just know that this image is going to figure in my nightmares for some time to come.

Once again, our "fake country" feels a little too real for comfort. In a move that really pushes us towards hillbilly-hood, Chris ran out to Wal-Mart to buy himself a critter-shootin' machine. He spent most of yesterday afternoon sitting in the kitchen with his shotgun, waiting for the groundhog to make his appearance. Of course, now that the groundhog has asserted his dominance of the yard he probably won't feel the need to wander in full view for a while. But when he does, Chris will be waiting.

Last summer I considered naming this creature. What a novice I was back then! This summer, I'm plotting out an animal graveyard.

This puts a whole new spin on an old family joke

Chris and I often joke about selling off one of the girls, since we have so many in reserve. But we had no idea just how lucrative the concept could be...

Chris' sister Becky needed to come up with something to auction off for her school's fundraiser. She often talks about "the neices" to her students, so she decided to put up a picnic, hosted by herself and attended by the winning student, with our four older girls attending.

Now, I suspect that Becky is a popular teacher. I know she really loves her students, and I think it's pretty mutual. So I don't necessarily attribute the bidding war that ensued purely to the attraction of spending an afternoon with my kids. But there was a bidding war, and the winning bid is.......impressive. How impressive? I'm not going to tell you the exact amount, but if you guessed a thousand dollars, you are waaaaaaaaaay off.

These girls are no cheap date.

So now we're a little nervous that this kid won't get her money's worth out of our girls. On the other hand, though, after hearing this exchange between Claire, Abbie and Grandpa Mlinek I think I should be nervous that she will:

Claire: Grandpa?
Grandpa: Yes?
Claire: One time, I fell off the swing and hurt my vee-ginia.
Abbie: BE-GINIA!
Claire: No, Abbie. It's "VEE- GIE-NEE-AH." It really hurt, Grandpa. Right here. I was so sore!
Abbie: BE-GINIA! BEE-GINIA!

What's a Grandpa to do in this situation? Chuckle a tiny little bit.
And look nobody in the eye.

Katie's First Communion

Happy First Communion, Katie! We are so, so proud of you and how well you "get" the mystery of the Eucharist. God bless you, little one.

Oh, hey! We also have some good news...

On top of the baby and all, we have a great update on Abbie!

She had an MRI a few days before Lucy was born, and the results have come in: the tumor has not grown at all, but there is significantly less dye enhancement. What this means is that the tumor is potentially going dormant! That would be absolutely wonderful, because then Abbie could be taken off the chemo and radiation could be delayed indefinitely. Her spine is also looking much healthier, meaning that most of the damage from her surgeries has been healed. So we'll see how her next MRI looks, but we now have a glimmer of hope that she may be spared radiation at such a young age.

All in all, very good news to get before having another baby! :)

More pictures of Lucy and her sisters

Introducing our spider monkey!

Lucy Anna made her entrance into the world without a hitch, at a surprisingly tiny 7lbs 15 oz. I was sure that she was going to be a gigantic baby due to the all the excessive and painful kicking going on, but as it turns out she is just very squirmy. So far she's an excellent baby, never fussy and eats like a champ. The only issue we need to address is her habit of waking up around midnight and remaining bright-eyed and bushy-tailed until about 4am. Hopefully we can talk some sense into her soon.

Friday the 13th....

Is looking like a lucky day for me!

I'm just packing up some last minute stuff, and then Chris and I are heading out to the hospital!

I'll have someone update the blog and post a picture or two at some point either today or tomorrow.

And if you have any spare prayers to throw my way, that'd be cool. :)

Yet another girl meets her destiny?

Beth wrote this story entirely by herself, and I've typed it out exactly as it is written. She asked for help on how to spell "garden" and "trick" but she figured out the rest herself.
I'm just the mom, of course, but I think it's pretty darn impressive for a five year old!!!! Enjoy:

The Big garden with a tree and a bee and a flours.
A trick book
Beths book

The big garben with a tree and a bee and a flours.
Thare wus a big garden with a lots of flours. in the garben thare is a big tree and a bee eding the nektr in the flours.
the girl lickt's too pick flours but wen the bee wus going uwaey she will picks the flours.
the end
and a girl waching all of the flours and the bee and the tree.

T minus 2 days

I am only going to do this once. And only because I was asked very nicely.

Please disregard the weird look on my face - getting the picture right was harder than I thought, and I was really concentrating! :)

Happy Easter!

Despite being totally jacked up on candy......



















the girls were angels for Easter! :)

More Tales of Claire and Abbie

Abbie's tumor has had more ramifications than I ever expected. For example: playing doctor.

"Doctor" has been a favorite game around here since the dawn of our children. Katie and Beth have spent countless hours slaving over either Chris or me, almost always resulting in the need to amputate at least one limb. They give shots, slap on band aids, listen to heartbeats -- all the usual stuff. Claire and Abbie, though.....well, their game has reached a whole new level.

I recently had one of those moments that really made it hit home; my kids know way more than they should about medical procedures. Claire and Abbie were playing doctor, and they ushered me into the guestroom for an impromptu surgery. Abbie very methodically checked my arm for a good vein, and then gave me an IV. She then took a blood sample to check for infection. Claire did the MRI to see where my tumor was, then put the anaesthesia into the IV line. They operated on the tumor, making sure to close and then wash the incision. And when I woke up, they made me take a sip of juice to make sure I was swallowing OK. Then they gave me pain medication and told me that I needed to start rehabilitation right away.

Pretty dead-on. At least, it's a far cry from the "here's your band aid, let me listen to your wrist with the stethoscope," we used to encounter in our pre-cancer days. I assure you, Katie and Beth never even thought to start an IV when they played doctor!

It's sad in a way, but funny in a way, too. At the least, it seems like Abbie's ability to play (and enjoy) this type of game is a healthy sign. Despite all the trauma, she's managed to avoid being traumatized. There is something sick and wrong in watching the two of them play doctor, but there is something beautiful and heartening about it, too. That Abbie (and Claire, who has seen, and thus had to process, more hospital action than the older girls) can tread this ground with such a light heart, such unconcern, shames me when I think of all the stupid things I've let myself be affected by. So hook me up the IV, girls! I can take it.

Proof that we have been overusing a certain phrase....

Claire woke up at 5am on Friday because she suddenly realized that her bear wasn't in her bed. She looked for it, then came down to enlist me in the search. I took her back up to her room, did a cursury look (no bear) and then convinced her to wait until morning to find Bear.

As Claire was climbing back under the covers, a little voice from Abbie's side of the room piped up, "Be quiet, Claire! I am SICK and TIRED!"

Melt my heart

Overheard during lunch:

"Hey, Princess?"

"I'm not a princess, I'm a ballerina."

"Oh, Ballerina? I love you."

"I love you too, darling."

Palm Sunday, or How To Torture A Young Family

Mass on Palm Sunday. Ah.

Our first mistake was to pick our mass time without reference to which priest would be presiding. Our parish has two wonderful priests, and we like both of them very much. However, one is lucid and mercifully succicint while the other is pretty elderly and not in the best of health, and a very sloooooooow talker to boot. Veeeeeeeeeery sloooooooooooow. Think Princess Bride guy, without the speech impediment.

Katie and Beth did a wonderful job. I need to state this first. Katie followed along in her new First Communion mass book, and she enjoyed reading the entire gospel as it was read. Beth couldn't quite follow the entire thing, but she could read the congregation's lines and that was enough to hold her interest.

Abbie, though, just really wanted to talk to Chris. She had a lot on her mind, I guess, and the long pauses between each word being read seemed like the perfect time to convey these thoughts to her Daddy. Claire, on the other hand, was not happy with all the attention I was giving Beth (I was pointing out the audience response ahead of time so that she would be ready) and decided that I need to read something to her. Right now. She wasn't satisfied by my efforts to show both her and the Beth the same book and in protest she began to squirm against me, evidently trying to touch as much of my body at once as humanly possible. And so Beth leaned in closer to me as well, both to see the book better and, I suspect, to defend her territory. And at that moment the baby started to kick me. Hard. I have never felt so claustrophobic in my life. Black spots were literally growing around my peripheral vision and it was becoming impossible to breathe. Meanwhile, Claire began crying because she wanted attention, Beth was shoving her head right into the part of my stomach where the baby was squirming, and the priest was up on the alter taking a full minute to read each. and. every. line. And then Abbie decided that she needed to be near Mommy as well.

We were smack in the middle of the pew, and there was nowhere for me to flee. Cue hormonal pregnant tears.

So Claire was crying, I was crying, Abbie was clearly thinking about crying, the baby was trying to break my ribs, Beth was shoving the book at me to keep on track, and Chris - from his end of the pew where there was air to breathe and just one, perfectly behaved 7 year old quietly reading, gave me a look that clearly said, "what is your problem?"

And Pilate said to the crowd, "What offense has this man committed?"
And they responded, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

Holy Week is going to be great. No, really, it is. Because I'm getting my own pew. And we'll see then who gets to leave mass with dry eyes.

38 weeks down, 15 days to go....

Eeep.

Commence panic.


(This is only a countdown to my due date - potential c-section is still not a sure thing, nor has it been scheduled yet!)

The Mole's Hollow - not just a euphemism!

Remember the post where I mentioned my fear of whatever was rustling in the dead weeds? Well, guess what? When I named this blog, little did I realize just how appropriate it would be.

As far as I can tell, we have at least one mole living with a vole or two right beside the house. We have one very large, very distinctively mole-ish hole, surrounded by a ton of little holes, with a few vole-specific runways thrown in. I guess it's Wind in the Willows out there, where all the animals are living in harmony. Excepting of course the large mammals living in this house, all of whom are pretty hostile to anything that qualifies as a rodent.

So, what to do? Part of me thinks that the idea of moles hanging around the garden is kind of cute. But then the other part of me saw a picture of a mole, and was terrified by how freaky it looked. Then there's the other part of me, the one who still says "pop," and "nebby," and who thinks that black and gold is a beautiful combination - this part of me can't help but thinking, "I need a safe place - somewhere with lots of concrete, where I can feel at home."

I thought we moved to the fake country. What are all of these real animals doing here?

Every single day, at least once

Abbie will come up to me and ask, "Is that baby coming out now?"

"No," I say, "not yet."

"Okay," is her always her answer, and off she goes on her merry way.

Funny thing is, I think she actually gets it -- I think she actually understands that an actual baby is coming to stay with us. (Side note: carrying a baby seems to kill certain parts of the brain -- the parts that can think of synonyms for words like "actual." Sorry for the inconvenience.)

Still hanging in!

Sorry for the long delay in updates! My site meter tells me that 14 people check this blog out every day, but you 14 people must be very loyal since I've lately been getting "are you still alive? why haven't you updated the blog?" emails every day. Thanks for the love! :) I've been....well, trying to get ready for the baby and stuff, but the real reason I haven't updated in a while is that I've been consistently choosing naps over computer time.

So, just a few quick notes and then I promise to put up kid stories tomorrow!

• First off, to my mom's friend Patty - I got your package, and I am really, really touched. Thank you so much! I fully intend to get a thank-you note out, but I wanted you to know that your gift just made my day, and the blanket is gorgeous.
• Please pray that we can get a date set for this baby's baptism. Our new parish is wonderful in many ways, but the office stinks and thus far I haven't been able to reach anybody who is willing to schedule a baptism. Please also pray that I manage to contain my spite and hatred, both of which are starting to build alarmingly.
• The baby is looking like she's a big 'un, so I'll have a sonogram next week to see if I am definitely C-section bound.
• Abbie has her next MRI the Monday after Easter. We have confidence that it'll show no growth, since she continues to get stronger every single day. Please keep her in your prayers, anyway, though!

Blowing the stink off

Almost all of my gardening knowledge comes from reading The Secret Garden in grade school.
This unfortunately means that for me, "gardening" translates into wandering around with a pocketknife whispering, "Dost tha' think 'tis wick?"

What this means in plain language is that the afternoon the girls and I spent weeding today will either yield a prettier yard in the Spring, or a dead one. I have no way of knowing which it will be.

We had a really good time, though! The weather was beautiful, and it just felt so good to get outside for a good long time. The girls were very helpful, picking up the piles (and piles and piles) of dead stuff I'd hacked up and carrying them over to the fire pit. At first I was overwhelmed by the amount of debris I was making, and I couldn't figure out how I was going to fit all of that into the trash cans, but then I remembered -- hey! I have a fire pit! I felt very resourceful as we fed the dead....whatever they were into the fire.

It's a good feeling to have spent the day working outside, and despite the fact that I am an enormous 34 weeks pregnant and had an entourage of prissy little girls as my labor force, we got quite a lot done. There is still that patch beside the house to do, and part of one down by the swingset, but I distinctly heard....something, and it seemed best to leave that to when Chris is around to shield the girls from my terrified reactions. Uh, or to just let Chris tackle it himself. I love it here in the fake country, but I'm still a city girl when it comes to critters.

Maybe it's time to break out the holy water when...

...you overhear one little bright-eyed, mop-headed child suddenly exclaim to the other, "My finger talks to me!".....

....and she extends her pointer finger and, bending it in time to her voice, responds in a low, growly voice, "You need to eat that sandwich or you'll get in trouble."

Heaven help me, the mirror above my dresser gives a perfect view of the wall above my bed. Let's all hope I don't wake up to any lip-stick prophecies scrawled out backwards anytime soon.

Oh, and Abbie....

...Is doing just fine. The infection is completely gone with the removal of the line. They still haven't identified what the actual infection was - they sent a specimen to the Mayo Clinic, it was so exotic, so it is definitely for the best that it is gone.

She feels just dandy, and the only lingering issue is the fact that she has finally realized what an opportunity she has to milk sympathy. If she wants a toy that Claire is playing with, she is now very likely to remind Claire in a pathetic voice that she's "so sicky." When she wakes up in the middle of the night (the hospital has wreaked havoc on her nighttime routine) she almost always tells me that she can't sleep because "I'm sick. I'll throw up."

Wow. Time to dial down the pity for little brain-tumor-girl, before she turns into a monster. The problem is, she is so darn cute and knows exactly how to charm everyone. The biggest danger is not that Chris and I might spoil her, but that her sisters might. She has the three of them completly wrapped around her little finger, and they seem to be defenceless against her powers.

It just may be that this new baby will truly be the one to "bring balance to the Force," since the Force is so unusually strong in Abbie. But like Darth Vader's last encounter with Obi-Wan, I don't know that she will like the competition.

Dinner out!

Despite the fact that we see the Lobers all the time, practically veiw them as family, and have spent most of the last 7 years living near them, we have never actually done anything with them sans children since college.

We are stupid that way.

Well, Vanessa really took the reins and not only tracked down a babysitter for her kids through our parish, she also found one for us! The babysitters are in fact cousins, and live next to each other. So yesterday afternoon, we introduced the girls to "Miss Clare" (the "Miss" to distinguish her from little Claire) and hit the town with the Lobers. Actually, we hit a local restaurant, where I really did justice to the "eating for two" myth. It was very, very cool -- I almost forgot what it is like to go out with other people! It's so grown-up! And the girls had a very good time, introducing Miss Clare to the joys of Uno (of course) and finding out that she is willing to really commit to a game of pirates.

We may have to do this again sometime. Soon. And as an added bonus, we could actually go out sometime with Becky and Dante, too, something else we never do because they are usually the ones playing Uno and chasing down rogue pirates.

Wow. It's a whole new world. :)

Clean as Snow

Katie had her First Confession yesterday! She was a little nervous, but told me that she felt very "light and happy" afterwards. :)

We've been practicing the Act of Contrition every night before bed, so just about everyone in the house has it memorized. (They have my version memorized, I should say. Chris and I learned different versions, and neither of us like the other's. I do bedtime prayers 90% of the time, though, so my version it was!) So it has been a very common occurance around here to hear tiny voices floating around randomly, saying things like "I am heartily sorry for having offended thee." Beth, of course, as my little word-phile, loooves it and memorized the prayer before anyone else did. Hopefully, Katie confessed the not-quite charitable response she had when she realized this. :)

Home at last!

Abbie had her line taken out today, and is now resting happily in my bed upstairs. Her bloodwork kept coming back with bacteria present, so it was obvious that the infection had reached her line. Now that the line is out, though, the infection should clear up right away (she's still on antibiotics, but we no longer need to give her the high-powered stuff through IV that she's been on the past few days.) We'll go back on Friday to have more bloodwork done, just to be sure, but it seems safe to say that she's in the clear.

The positive in all of this is that as long as nothing happens to neccessitate (sp? too lazy to check it) another line being put in, she'll finally be able to take regular baths and go swimming this summer! To quote Abbie, "Whee-hoo!" This is going to make the summer so, so much easier!

It is funny to think that this hospital stay -- all due to that stupid "fever-less" stomach bug -- has ended up being only one day shorter that Abbie's second brain surgery. Thank goodness they let us go home today! We were all starting to go a little buggy, although I have been extremely proud of how well the older girls' behaved through all of this. They spent quite a few days caged in that little room with us all day, and their behaviour was never less than impeccable. By the time we left, everyone knew about "that family with the five sweet girls," and the nurses were plying them with ice cream and stickers at every turn.

We're all pretty tuckered out from this unexpected week in the hospital, so now it's off snuggle in bed with Abbie and Claire, and murmur to myself, "there's no place like home!" :)

We knew this was bound to happen at some point, but it still stinks

Update 2/17 : The results are back, and the infection is still growing. This came as a surprise to everyone, and we still don't know for sure exactly what it means. The infection could possibly be in her line (the broviac) itself, in which case it will need to be removed. In any case, she's not getting out of the hospital anytime soon. Please pray.



Abbie had to be hospitalized due to an infection that reached her blood.

She's doing pretty well in the hospital now, the antibiotics are clearly already working and she's enjoying free reign over the t.v. and the loooong trips to the playroom.

The stomach-bug that I happily proclaimed a fever-free one turned ugly for Abbie in the wee hours between Wed and Thursday. I took her in to the Hem/Onc Clinic Thursday morning for some antibiotics, and they sent me home. Very early this morning, though, we got the call that her lab results were back, and that her blood contained a grand-positive infection, and that she needed to come back right away. And there she still is. Chris is spending the night there right now, and in the morning the girls and I will head back to relieve him. We're hoping for a clear blood culture in the morning, which would mean that Abbie can be discharged. There is a chance that she'll be have to stay through the weekend, though.

The scary thing about all of this is what a little, insignificant illness triggered the infection, and how quickly it spread to her blood. There was a space of about 6 hrs between the onset of a fever and the presentation of infection in her blood. That doesn't exactly give us much breathing room. What happens if her next fever comes while we're away from home? What would have happened if her fever had spiked just a day earlier, during a snowstorm? Whew. Please pray for her healing, and that luck (via God) continues to be on our side should this happen again.

p.s. this is written right before bedtime, after a week of no sleep and a day spent in the hospital, so please excuse any typos and/or spelling/grammatical errors. :)

Happy Valentine's Day

I don't usually put things up here that aren't directly related to the kids, etc. (except that one about Bridge to Terebithia, but anti-Disney rants should always be an acceptable exception.) This story really touched me, though, so here it is.

This couple was found during an archealogical dig in Mantua. The story sounds pretty tragic, but beautiful in a morbid kind of way.

By the way, Chris is out of town, the girls have all been sick since Sunday. Abbie has been sleeping in 30 min spurts, and I spent the majority of last night bent over the toilet myself (not easy with this huge stomach.) This is all the Valentine's Day sentiment I can muster.

You know you are living in a house full of girls when....

I wonder why that door is closed......





Oh. Of course.

Well, she has a point.

Me: Look how big that baby is making my belly!!

Abbie: No! That's just cookies and milk and pizza.

UNO!

Uno-fever has swept the Mlinek house. The girls just can't get enough. We've been playing a minimum of four or five games every day for the past month or so.

The funny thing, for me, is that I am really not much of a card-playing type of person. I'm also not a big fan of board games. They've just always struck me as.....boring and pointless, to be honest. I used to smirk at the pictures on the board-game boxes depicting those smiley, well-groomed families all gathered together engaging in Family Fun, and I would thank my lucky stars that I wasn't in that kind of family. And now here I am, clearing off the dinner dishes most nights so that we can all play a few rounds of Uno. The only thing saving us from looking like a board-game family is the massive static-hair the girls have been sporting this winter.

Funny, though, how it doesn't seem boring to me at all now. I find myself really enjoying these games, especially as Claire and Abbie attempt to understand the logistics of it all. It's also an actual challenge to NOT win when luck is on your side and you have a 4 yr old who knows our "draw 4" card will devastate the player beside us and really, really wants to use it.

So, I guess I'm becoming domesticated? I don't know, but my feelings about gathering around games like this are definitely changing. I guess it's partly because.....well, it's fun to spend time with these girls. They are smart, and funny, and can occasionally throw in some wicked moves. And I like feeling all cozy and together-y. The biggest thing, though, is that they just enjoy it so much! It's hard not to catch their enthusiasm and it's nice to spend this time with them, this time that I know will be short-lived, when the best night they can conjure is one spent playing cards with Mommy and Daddy.

Just don't ask me to break out Monopoly.

The perils of re-reading Harry Potter while pregnant

I woke suddenly last night due to a horrible, horrible leg cramp. This happens all the time when I'm pregnant. But last night it was enhanced by my fuzzy half-dreaming conviction that I had just been put under the Cruciatus Curse.

This won't make sense to some people, but the Harry Potter fans .......... you know this is funny!

"You may not come out of time-out until you stop screaming!"

"But Mommy! When you made me go to time out it broke my heart!"

Musings from the frozen aisle

I ran to the grocery store this afternoon to pick up some milk and stuff to make nachos, but once in the store I thought I should pick up some apples while I was at it. Then I remembered that we are almost out of lunch juice boxes, then ...........well, you know how it goes.

As I was trudging through there, though, I was suddenly struck by how much more food we need, and how little it lasts. The bigger girls (Katie and Beth) are starting to eat more like normal people, less like toddlers who exist on some mystery plane that apparently doesn't require regular intake of food. Claire, too, has an appetite that is beginning to have a direct affect on the shopping list. (Abbie, of course, is still a nonfactor, unless you count bannanas and oatmeal.) I bought a box of frozen waffles a week or two ago as a special treat, but they are still in the freezer. Why? Well, when I got them home I realized that six waffles divided among four girls leaves.....not enough waffles. The funny thing is that when I bought them, I had a fleeting vision of happy, syrup-y mornings. Note the plural! I planned on using the waffles for at least two breakfasts, not realizing that while I was daydreaming my family had moved beyond a one-box demand.

Wow. Someone told me, back when Katie was a tiny newborn, that "it all goes by so fast." At the time I thought this person must be on crack - the days were draaaaaging by as my baby refused to sleep, making each afternoon feel like a year. But......here I am, suddenly realizing that I am shopping for a little, newly-formed family when the reality is we're only two years shy of our 10 yr anniversary, and there are four (and soon five!) hatchlings waiting at home with open mouths. So again - wow. It all goes by so fast.

Girl meets Destiny

Happy Birthday Larry! I'm so glad that we were able to get you just what you wanted! Rock on, little girl.




As a side note: Claire asked for a "chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, that looks just like me!" Uh, I did my best.

Little Larry the loveable leper

This picture doesn't actually do justice to just how red and swollen the poor thing was. She's finally getting better after three days of looking shockingly terrible. No clue on why. But we're glad to have her sweet little self getting back to normal!

I've lost my faith in humanity

One of the perks of rooming with an elementary-ed major in college was digging through her stash of children's lit. (Thanks Monica!) When I picked up Bridge to Terebithia one afternoon, I spent the next few hours absolutely transfixed. By the end I was curled up in a ball on Monica's bed, sobbing my heart out. It is one of those books that give you that glimpse of what it must feel like to be in heaven; it is trulya peircingly beautiful book even though the events it describes aren't exactly happy ones.

And that is why this makes me want to vomit.

I freaking hate Disney. Hate them. Hate them!

How does a book about friendship in its deepest and most soul-searing incarnation turn into a movie about kids running around some cheesey fantasy-land with swords? How the heck were they able to put the name of this book that I absolutely love on this crappy Narnia-clone of a movie?

Augh. I guess there are no members of the race who know Joseph in Hollywood. At least, there aren't any working for Disney.

OK, am I on Punk'd?

No fevers this morning. But when Claire hopped into the bath this afternoon, I noticed that she had little red blotches on her hands. And her belly. And all over her legs.

It could just be a random case of hives - these happen to my kids from time to time, thanks to Chris' weird hive-prone genes. But if she still has it tomorrow? Well, after spending the morning at the Oncology clinic, I guess we'll be making yet another stop by the Pediatrician's. So fun.

I guess I can't exactly complain about not getting out - we're getting out plenty, it just happens that the destination always seems to involve a doctor.

In praise of my husband

With the girls hovering around various levels of illness the past two weeks, I have begun to increasingly feel like a rat in a cage.

A gigantic, crampy rat in a cage full of smaller, constantly chattering mice.

So Chris stepped up to the plate yesterday and released me out into the wild. "The wild" being Bed Bath and Beyond, and then the Towson mall with Vanessa.

Do you know what it feels like to step into a foul-smelling, cramped mall bathroom and get a surge of happiness because you realize that you don't need to finangle any little bottoms (with layers of toilet paper, let's hope those pants don't touch the floor, please don't fling your hair into the toilet when you pull them up!) into the stall with you? It's heaven.

So, I was MIA for a good four or five hours when I finally got a call from Chris, politely asking me to stop by the store to get Coke for Claire. Because she had spent the whole day throwing up. When I left the house, Claire hadn't even begun to sprout a fever (and yes, I checked - part of the daily routine lately has been a temp check for everyone upon waking.) Chris spent all day bent over the toilet holding Claire's hair out of her face, just so that I could get a little break.

Forget flowers and schmaltzy Hallmark cards; this, young ladies out there, is what true love is all about.

another man down

Katie still has a fever.

Claire spent all day vomitting.

Will Abbie make it? Tune in to find out!

Update on our health

Beth's fever is down, and her appetite is returning. By tomorrow she shouldn't be contagious anymore.

Abbie is still fever-free.

But Katie just said that her belly hurts. And her temp was 100.9.

$@#%!

The Magic of Bob Books, or How Beth is Incredibly Smart

Beth is going a little stir-crazy so I've been pulling out all sorts of things that were still in storage, in an effort to keep her entertained. I pulled out the "Bob Books" we used to re-inforce Katie's reading lessons, and to my surprise Beth was quickly able to read through the entire first box!

I've done nothing with her this year. She's gone through letter sounds in her kindergarten class, but they hadn't really begun to go through those in earnest until after Christmas. We went through the first book together, and I showed her how to mash the letter sounds together to sound out the words. And that was all it took - like magic, she suddenly could read!

She's excited beyond belief, of course, and has been doing nothing but reading the Bob books all day. I'm excited, too. I can't believe how easily she picked this up, and how quickly she's picking up new concepts. I'm so proud of her, and already I can't wait until she's ready to start The Wind in the Willows on her own!

Strep Throat

So that's why Beth wasn't getting any better.

Prayers that Abbie can avoid this would be appreciated!

First successful quarantine

I probably shouldn't even post this, since I'm officially waiting until tonight to declare victory. But, things are looking pretty optimistic.

Three days ago, Beth came home from school with a raging fever. This sort of thing is never fun, but Abbie's condition puts a whole new spin on things. Her blood counts are down - not so much that it is alarming, but enough that her resistance to infection has been impacted. Plus, her broviac puts her at a much greater risk of sepsis; even a small infection can quickly travel to her heart and put her into septic shock.

So, we had to try to keep her healthy through Beth's illness. Not easy, especially when Abbie was so delighted to have Beth home from school that she wanted nothing more than to hug her all day long. To make things more complicated, we were having our kitchen painted, thus putting the kitchen out of use.

So, we put a movie on in the basement for Abbie and Claire, and Beth was put into quarantine in my bedroom (the only other room in the houe with a t.v.) Then the power went out. No movies for anyone. So we had Abbie and Claire, sitting around the increasingly frigid basement and Beth, stuck up in my bedroom with nothing to do but look at books, and occasionally run to the bathroom to vomit. Oh, and since we have a well, when the power goes out so does the water.

We made it through, though. Beth finally recovered and was able to go back to school today, and so far Abbie is showing no signs of developing a fever.

Thank God for small miracles. :)

Update:

Beth threw up in school again yesterday. I have no idea what is going on with her - she had no fever, although her temp went up a little by the evening. We are going on over a week now of this: she throws up, spikes a fever, then seems to go back to being perfectly fine. Until she throws up again. Ugh.

I am a prisoner in this house.

She knows

Twice now in the past month Katie has directly asked me, "If Santa Claus was not real, you would tell me, right?"

Both times I took advantage of the usual family chaos to avoid answering her. But the time had come, both Chris and I agreed.

We were nervous about this, partly because Katie is scrupulously truthful and might not understand why we had "lied" to her, partly because learning the truth had been so sad for both of us and we assumed it would be a similar experience for Katie.

So, yesterday, Chris took Katie out to get ice-cream. And he leveled with her about Santa, the Easter Bunny, and yes, even the Tooth Fairy. Katie's reaction, though, defied every one of our expectations. She sighed, and nodded, and said:

"Well, good. It makes me more comfortable to know that there aren't really people who come into our house when I am asleep."

She is not angry, she is not bitter, she is not even sad. No, Katie is relieved. It's a well-worn phrase, but I guess the truth really does set you free, even in the most unexpected of circumstances.

Found on the floor while sweeping....

Jalen's File
by: Katie Mlinek

Katie loves Jalen in the way like I like him but I like him so much you can say you love him in the way of like.

Our story began 8 years ago this very day....

Eight years ago today, in the middle of a blizzard, Chris and I began our life together. My mom had sent away to have masses said for us at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, so I've always viewed that snowfall as a sign of blessing for our marriage. Although, on a practical level, it was pretty inconvenient (but it made for some really great snowboot-themed wedding pictures!)

As inconvenient as the snow was, it actually set the tone for things to come. We have been blessed beyond measure in our marriage, but our blessings always tend to come in strange ways and inconvenient packages. Almost every event in our marriage that at first seemed to be an overwhelming burden has brought us the most unlooked-for, unthought-of, but ultimately necessary blessings. Babies born in what conventional wisdom would deem bad times, too close together, too often. Chaos when we thought we needed serenity. Serenity when we thought we needed excitement.

Who are we to know what is best for us? I don't know that I would have planned for my life to go this way - toddler with cancer, kids in public school, five times the amount of kids all our friends have. I haven't written that best-selling novel I had planned on. Chris hasn't set the world on fire the way it was predicted he would. But......I love my husband with all of my heart. I admire him, I respect him; he is not only the best friend I have in the world, he is my model of virtue, the bright spot in my day when things are bleak. And, improbable as it seems to me, he feels the same way about me. This is something; something really rare, something really good, something I am proud to be a part of.

So, happy anniversary Chris! I don't know what other surprises are in store for us, but I know that you will be beside me when they come. And that is all that matters.

Happy New Year!

We let the girls (minus Abbie) stay up until midnight last night, so this was a slow-starting morning. So slow, in fact, that we still - at 5pm- haven't really begun the day. We're having a lazily cozy, slightly frowzy start to 2007. Everyone needs baths, but nobody has had one. Chris and I, and Beth, are still in our pjs. I think we may have potato chips for dinner.

Last night was really nice, with the Lobers coming over to ring in the New Year with us. The Lober small folk are more used to late nights, and I was afraid that my girls would not fare as well into the wee hours. But they were fine - a little hyper, but who can blame them with all the candy and chips they were eating? And nobody puked from the excess, which was both unusual and very cool.

So today is spent in recovering - a lot of laying around , reading books in front of the fire, nibbling on whichever leftovers still seem vaguely appealing. Like I said, lazy and cozy, and really very, very comfy and enjoyable. Here's to a 2007 filled with days like this: nothing to do, and nowhere to go, happy and safe at home. :)

Why I will probably need a C-section

On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love gave to me - about a million cookies
On the 2nd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me peanut butter fudge
-and about a million cookies
On the 3rd day of Christmas, my true love gave to me candied sweet potatoes
-peanut butter fudge
-and about a million cookies
On the 4th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-peanut butter fudge
-and about a million cookies
On the 5th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!!!!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-Peanut butter fudge
-and about a million cookies
On the 6th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me moist lemon pound cake
-EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-peanut butter fudge
-and about a million cookies
-On the 7th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me leftover ham
-moist lemon pound cake
-EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-peanut butter fudge
-and about a million cookies
On the 8th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me homemade caramels
-leftover ham
-moist lemon pound cake
-EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-peanut butter fudge
-and about a million cookies
On the 9th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me cornbread stuffing
-(we'll never eat it all)
-homemade caramels
-moist lemon pound cake
-EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-(I think I'm gonna puke)
-And about a million cookies
On the 10th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me the rum-balls no-one will eat!
-cornbread stuffing
-homemade caramels
-leftover ham
-(What's that fish smell in the fridge?)
-EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-(thank God that's almost gone)
-And about a million cookies
On the 11th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me 1 pound of M&Ms
-(Here comes diabetic shock)
-cornbread stuffing
-(am I the only one eating this?)
-leftover ham
-(the lemon cake is gone)
-EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-peanut butter fudge
-And about a million cookies
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me four extremely wired girls!
-1 pound of M&Ms
-the rum-balls no-one eats
-cornbread stuffing
-(something really smells wrong in here)
-leftover ham
-(Is that a loaf of apple bread?)
-EXTRA STRENGTH TUMS!
-Cheerwine soda
-candied sweet potatoes
-peanut butter fudge
-and a gestating 12 lb baby!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to All!




And to all a good night:

Best wishes to everybody!

Excerpts from Katie's "Book about Me"

I wonder why the sky is blue.
I wonder who stole my dessert one day.
I wonder when it will rain.
I wonder if my dad's family is moving.
I wonder whether the clouds are blue or white.
I wonder how come it rains.
I wonder where my dad works.
I wonder what kind of fish live in deep, deep, deep water.

And now please keep in mind that she in only 7, and that even Fathers of the Church like St. Augustine went through some.......unorthodox phases :

If I could make a wish for the world it would be letting girls be priests too because I think it is not fair that only boys can be it
so that girls would think it would be fairer then.

Time to whip out my Blessed Edith Stein and try to channel this in some sort of positive direction, I guess.

Finally some help!

I know, I know, I need to get off of my lazy rear and download some pictures for a "Happy Birthday Abbie!" post.

But in the meantime, I just found some ammunition in my quest to squeak Katie through this Christmas without having the Big Santa Talk! :-p

New Haircut!

I was tired of constantly combing Claire's hair, only to have it immediately revert back to it's unruly ways. She has a little touch of Pig-Pen in her; she can look absolutely filthy merely minutes after taking a bath. So about two weeks ago, when we had an hour to spare between dropping the big girls off at school and Abbie's physical therapy, we made a quick trip to the hair saloon. And I love the results! Claire now looks cute, neat, and at least cleaner all the time now.
And she likes it because it makes her look "like Stephanie from Lazytown." (Note: this show is very passe around here. We haven't watched it in months, yet somehow Stephanie seems to have become the standard of beauty for these girls. Um, in case you haven't seen it, her hair is pink. Should I be concerned?)

Anyway, I think she looks adorable and I wanted to share. Enjoy! :)

We knew this already, but now it's official!

Katie is a Terrific Kid:


(Admittedly, this is not her best picture but it's the only one I took.)

Many years ago, when Katie was still a wee babe, I noticed a bumper sticker that said, "My child is a Terrific Kid at Blah-Blah School!" I turned to Chris and we both started to laugh at how silly and meaningless it was. "All that sticker tells you is that their kid isn't an honor student," Chris said. I heartily agreed.

Fast forward to mid November of this year (I'm a little behind on posts), and I opened a notice from Franklin saying that Katie has been chosen as a "Terrific Kid" for the month, and that we were invited to a little ceremony to honor her and the other students chosen. Guess we were wrong, it isn't completely meaningless after all!

Katie was very excited about the whole thing, and very, very proud. She paid very special attention to how she was behaving because she wanted to be a good representative of what a Terrific Kid should be. It was adorable to watch her.

So we went to the ceremony, where a child from each homeroom gave a short speech to show how they embody the "value of the month" (respect, in this case.) Katie began her speech by reciting the definition of "respect," and thus her future rhetoric style was begun.

And now I am going to be cynical. This was a big deal for Katie. She took it very seriously, and was sincerely honored to have been chosen. We were (are) very proud of her; honestly, the girl absolutely deserved it! But I realized the rub right away, and it only took Katie a month to see it for herself. A "terrific kid" is chosen from EVERY homeroom EVERY month. That means that out of 20 kids in a homeroom, almost half of them will be named a Terrific Kid by the end of the year. Seriously, if you can't score at least one TK award in your elementary school years you have to actually work at being a loser.

In the words of the Incredibles, "If everyone is special, that means that no-one is special."

Today, Katie came home very perturbed because one of the boys chosen as this month's TK pushed her down on the playground. She can't understand why he was chosen, when his actions have often showed a complete disrespect for "the value of the month." So now Katie is in the uncomfortable position of suspecting that her "reward" doesn't mean as much as she thought it did. She's starting, and this is what makes me angry, to feel that she was foolish to be so proud of showing the "value of respect," because she now suspects that the powers-that-be don't actually care about rewarding the most virtuous (and here's another sticky point, of course - they aren't rewarding virtue. They don't even officially recognize virtue. It's all about "values," whatever ideals happen to be in vogue at this minute. Who the hell decides what a "value" is anyway? Isn't it by definition subjective? I value chocolate-loving, but no-one has yet to offer me a reward for my natural predilection, nor should they. What is inspiring is that by which we rise above our natural tendencies, not some watered-down hooey that claims we should be "good people" without having the guts to explain what makes a person "good.")

So, here we are. Katie is still proud of her award but in a muted, confused sort of way. I've put the bumper sticker up on the fridge, because I am proud of what a great daughter, student and sister Katie is. But I will not affix it to my bumper, because I refuse to give in to this herd mentality. My child is special, and maybe some people might think that makes their kids less special but they couldn't be more wrong. It just means that they haven't taken the time to figure what extraordinary tidbits are lurking in their own children.

It is a good thing that I am not married to Henry VIII

Today was the Big Sonogram. My sister Rachel was positive that we are having a boy. Katie was countering that, logically, given the number of girls we already have (4) compared to the number of boys (0), it is most likely another girl. Chris thought, for the first time since Katie, that a boy was at least a possibility. I think it's safe to say, though, that his family believes that we are destined to have all girls.

.......I suppose a drumroll would be appropriate...........



It's a GIRL, of course!

So, are we obligated to name the baby Therese? Or maybe I should draw from my literary background and name the baby Lydia. (If you've read the book, this is obviously a joke!) In any case, I guess we're in good company.

And at least I don't need to buy new baby clothes. :)

I have a huge backlog of stories to tell....

But first, here's one from this morning illustrating why I've been too tired to write this stuff down lately:

Abbie woke up last night at 1 am, then again at 2, 3, 4, and 5am. At 6 I threw her into bed with us, where she remained quiet for about twenty minutes. Then she proclaimed, "I take good nap!" which is her way of officially declaring that she is ready to begin the day.

I grunted and rolled over.

She gently patted my head and said, "I love you Mommy. I really love you."

So I grudgingly fell out of bed (that is really the most accurate way to describe it.) As we made our way through the still pitch-dark house, she again patted me sweetly and cooed, "You're so cute, Mommy!"

Yeah, right, kid. You're not slick enough (yet) to completely sucker me. But it did buy her enough goodwill to procure a cup of milk before I collapsed on the couch, closing my eyes against the flickering light of "The Upside-Down Show."

Addict

Claire is really jonesing these days. Our post-Halloween ritual has been set in stone from day one, modeled after my childhood memories of post-Halloween candy consumption.

This means that we celebrate All Saints' Day by gorging on candy from morning until night. After that, however, we have a strict 2-peices-of-candy-a-day rule, once after lunch and once after dinner (if they eat dinner.)

Claire just can't seem to get it this year, though. We did not have this problem last year, but now this little one wakes up with an intense craving for candy that lasts until we get a small respite when she goes back to sleep. Despite the fact that I have NEVER ONCE given in and let the girls eat candy before breakfast, Claire asks me for some every single morning. And she seems to believe that continued nagging might be effective in this situation, even though it never has to date.

Yesterday, I realized that we were dealing with something very serious. She asked for candy before breakfast: denied. She asked for candy during breakfast: denied. She asked for candy after breakfast: denied, and threatened with a time-out if she asked again.

Then I ran into the bathroom for a quick shower, feeling fairly confident that the issue had been handled, at least until lunchtime. As the water ran, though, I heard a tiny voice outside the door to the bathroom.

"What?" I yelled out the door. A mumbly voice answered something like "whiny whiny whiny MOMMY, whiny whiny whiny."

So I hopped out of the shower, unlocked the door, and then hopped back in. I then told whoever it was to open the door so that I could hear her, assuming that Abbie had stolen a toy, or someone wasn't playing with someone else....the usual stuff that suddenly becomes urgent when I want ten minutes to take a shower.

The door opened, and a spray of unruly brown hair peeped around the doorknob. A tiny voice asked, "Can I have some candy now?"

Does Hershey sponser some kind of rehab? At least we are now down to the yickiest leftovers, and hopefully once Claire gets past the shakes things will calm down.

Things that make me happy

1- Spending an hour wandering around a bookstore, all by myself.
2- Finding a new book of short stories by Susanna Clarke, author of this book
3- Coming home to the deliciously smoky smell of our first fire blazing in the fireplace!
4- Old Crow on On Demand!!!!
5- The really fake fire on the electric heater we have in the basement
6- Feeling the baby kick
7- "Fun size" snickers bars
8- My new tea pot's perfectly shrill shriek when the water boils
9- A clean house, courtesy of Merry Maids (and Uncle Kevin and Aunt Sally!)
10- Discovering that there is actually one more Jane Austin book that I haven't read!!!!
11- Anticipating the moment when I can curl up on the couch and read it!
12- Realizing that we need to paint the kitchen green, not blue, and imagining what it will look like when we do.
Bonus 13- Anything with pumpkin in it!!!

Just treats, no tricks

We went to the Lobers' to trick-or-treat tonight, and it worked out perfectly. The kids had a great time, and tore through the Lobers' development like a little mob. . (You don't actually even need to give them the sugar, you know, for kids to become hyper and crazy. Just the promise of it is enough to jack them up.)

So here are a few pictures of our night. Happy Halloween everybody! :)

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I decided to pull my whiny, melodramatic rant off of here. The world will be a better place for it. Or, at least, my blog will be. :)

Angels with Sticky Faces

Katie found an angel costume in a bag of hand-me-downs today, and she immediately put it on and began floating around the house proclaiming heavenly things in a sing-songy sort of way. As I was getting ready to do the elliptical machine, Katie was standing in the middle of the basement singing, "You must all share your things.......You must all be kind to each other.... You need to love God...." Nobody was paying her any particular attention.

Fast forward about 15 minutes (I can never go long on the elliptical without being interuppted), I had taken my headphones off and noticed Katie standing over Beth, who was innocently enough laying on the floor and drawing. Katie was angelically singing:

Beth! I fear that you are going to hell!
Oh dear Beth, you are going to go to hell!

Beth, being Beth, didn't even realize that Katie was there. And Katie, who didn't previously know that telling someone they are going to hell is included in "bad words," was immedietly enlightened. And I found myself again stumped by the philosophy of my children. Do angels know, before a person dies, if they are going to hell for certain or not?

Never once before having children did it occur to me that I would one day sit at the computer with my 7 year old daughter, googling variations on "angels and damnation." But there I was. It's an interesting life.

$32 in pumpkins

This is what happens when you foolishly say, "Pick whichever pumpkin you want!"
Beth's alone weighs more than she does, I think.

Katie's birthday- a picture retrospective

Birthday Celebretion: Part II happens in a week, with the Discovery Zone and the Beloved Jonathan!

Did you know?

A bag of flour, when emptied upside-down on the kitchen floor by an unnamed child, makes a really big mess. It is much more tricky to clean up than you would think, especially when said child runs in a panic through the pile of flour, leaving little white footprints to follow her sobs throughout the house.

And when another child wakes up prematurely from her nap (because of the sobs and the pounding footsteps) and also begins to scream, and you frantically try to fill her cup with milk to calm her down because you just realized that it is almost time to pick the other children up from school (because you lost track of time, you see, sweeping up clouds of flour that resettle into even more piles of flour), and you spill the milk all over a pile of flour still on the floor.....well then, you have made glue. Except that this glue smells kind of funky. And I really wasn't planning on gluing anything onto the kitchen floor (which, by the way, is wood - like, real actual hardwood.)

All of the newly expecting mothers I know right now - write this down and remember this. Because they will not tell you these stories in your parenting magazines and "what to do when" books. And they certainly will not offer advice on how to scrape homemade glue off of your floors.

You know the meal you've prepared is not a winner when....

....your 21 month old daughter says, "I don't like this! I need to throw in garbage."

Have iTunes?

I made a CD of songs that pertain to Abbie's situation. It's available on iTunes through imix. I thought I'd post the songs, because taken all together I think it really captures the way this all feels. A word of warning, though! We are lovers of Rock here, so....uh, some of these songs might not appeal to everyone. :)

The Tumor Mix

1- Theme from Blinking Lights..............................The Eels
2-Blackbird...............................................................CSN
3-Bad Day.................................................................Danial Powter
4-Wires......................................................................Athlete
5-Wonder...................................................................Natalie Merchant
6-We're All in this Together....................................Old Crow Medicine Show
7-Sometimes You Can't Make it on your Own.....U2
8-I Will Keep the Bad Things From You...............The Damnwells
9-The Funeral...........................................................Band of Horses
10-Alive......................................................................Pearl Jam
11-Daughter with It's Okay.....................................Pearl Jam (Live from Quickens Loan Arena)
12-Glosoli....................................................................Sigur Ros


A bit of an explanation:

3- This is Abbie's favorite song, hands down. And it is pretty relevant, since she's had quite a few "bad days." She started asking me to sing this to her in the hospital, and it's now a ritual (that we go through many, many, many times whenever we go back.)

4 - this song is about a baby born prematurely, but the lines "Running....down corridors....got to get to you, got to see this through" explain exactly how I feel any time I'm obliged to leave the hospital for a bit. And I love the lines, "I see it in your eyes, I see it in your eyes....You will be alright."

5- This is really more a tribute to my cousin, Mary, who passed away as an infant. I remember hearing my aunt and uncle say that it made them think of her, and it has made me think of her ever since. Mary has been in my mind constantly ever since Abbie's tumor was first diagnosed, and I ask her to intercede for Abbie all of the time. I have to believe that her innocent little soul praying for my innocent little child has to be very powerful.

8- This song is more of a love song, but I really identify with the desire to "keep the bad things from you."

11- Pearl Jam only plays this live, but the "It's Okay" segway has always been a favorite with our kids. This is another song I sing to Abbie all the time when we are in the hospital. The main lyrics are "It's okay...It's okay, you don't have to run and hide away. It's okay...It's okay, you know we've all seen better days."

12- This song was on constant repeat in my mind during both of Abbie's major surgeries. It's not in english, but it is clearly a song about a journey -- a long, difficult journey. The video shows children marching over mountains until they get to a cliff, and jump off..........and they all fly away. It is beautiful, and poignant, and one of my favorite songs of all time. And for me it reflects the hope I have that Abbie is going to be okay, and stronger for this ordeal. And the hope, or really the conviction, that no matter what she is in good Hands.


So, anyways, here's the link to the imix. If it doesn't work, I can email a link to you through iTunes. It's not worth it, though, unless you are actually going to buy all of the songs. But I thought I'd put it out there, just in case. :)

Here's the link from my email:

Congratulations, your iMix "Soundtrack to living with an ill child" has been published in the iTunes Music store at:http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=201489222

Hooray!

We just came home from meeting with Abbie's oncologists as well as her surgeon, Dr. Myseros, and thus far things are looking good! Finally! :)

The tumor does not seem to have grown at all, although the MRI showed some areas with increased dye uptake. That does not necessarily point to anything bad, however; it could be due to any number of things, most of them either indifferent or, gasp!, positive. Since she is doing so well physically there is little cause for concern at this point.

So, two more months of chemo and then another MRI. But we're finally starting to feel a little more hope that things will continue to go well. I was all tied up in knots on the drive to DC this morning, but when we came home I suddenly noticed what a gorgeous day it is! Thank God for the fall, and for allowing us to enjoy it with our beautiful little girls!

Beth measures my worth, and I rate pretty OK

It is kind of "cheating" to just throw up posts with quotes from the girls, but I hope it is at least amusing.

Here's one from Beth. (The best ones always come from Beth, in case you haven't noticed!)

Mommy, I think you are the second best Mommy ever! Because I think Mary was probably a little bit better.

So far, nothing to report

No word on Abbie's MRI yet. We have an appointment with oncology next Thursday, so we'll definitely know by then.

For now, here's a little story to keep you preoccupied. :)

On our last visit to the clinic at Sinai, we were sitting in the room with two doctors and a nurse, doing something or other (I can't remember what.) When Claire suddenly turned to me and said, "I don't know if you love me. Because you spank me all the time!"

For the record, I've spanked her once. About four months ago. And she was totally asking for it.

If I said I wasn't worried about Abbie's upcoming MRI...

I would be lying.

I'm not very worried, but......you know. We haven't had a "good" MRI yet, so it's hard to not be a little anxious.

Good news most likely awaits us, but........if you have a prayer to throw our way, we won't turn it down. :)

Fun with cancer

You can tell how well Abbie is doing and how small and quiet my worries about her are, by the fact that I am about to whine and complain about small stuff.

So, here I go! To begin with, Abbie is just fine. Her fever was already gone by the time I took her to the clinic. I apparently made a mistake by telling the answering service that it was "not an emergency" when I called the day her fever appeared. It's hard to switch your perspective that way -- a little fever, coming a few days after another child has had the same, really mild, illness just doesn't feel like an emergency. However, because of Abbie's weakened immune system coupled with the fact that her broviac provides any bacteria quick and easy access to her heart, any fever (even if it's below 100) needs to be treated as an emergency. I was told that any infection would take less than 24 hrs to put her into septic shock. So, we don't have the time to determine if the fever is in fact related to infection; she needs to go on antibiotics right away.

That being said, no-one really thought that she had an infection with this fever. But it's a chance that we just can't take, no matter how benign it seems. So.....here comes the whine.....we ended up spending two days at the oncology clinic so they could give her the antibiotics. (We didn't spend the night, and the actual administration of the medication took about half an hour. But, it's just the way things go there; you show up bright and early in the morning, and by the time you get away it's almost time to pick up the older girls from school. Just a lot of sitting around and waiting.) It's not a huge deal. I understand that the clinic is very busy, and I understand that the hospital pharmacy has to prioritize which medication to make -- so they guy in danger of imminent death upstairs trumps my baby downstairs, which is fine, of course. I never actually want us to be the ones prioritized; it's much better to be healthier and on the periphery than in danger and the center of attention.

But......um, spending the day entertaining two little kids in the rather dull oncology clinic isn't exactly fun. Especially when your mind momentarily went beserk, and you forgot to pack enough supplies to last four or five hours. (On day 2, I had enough food to keep the entire clinic fed for a week, but of course we ended up getting out of there about an hour earlier than we had the day before, when all I had was a baggie full of Cheeze-its.)

So, waah-waah-waah, poor us. We happened to be there when one of the nurses went into labor with her baby, though, so that was cool to hear. I hope her labor went well! Maybe I should have offered up my boredom for her and her baby.......

Apologies for the long silence.....

...... but my apparently aging back again went out and I spent the last week laying flat on my back. Very pathetic, although I enjoyed having the time to read a few good books. And found out that Chris makes a pretty good Mr. Mom!

In other news: Beth had a fever last weekend, and now Abbie seems to have it. Because of her central line, she can't have tylenol or anything, and we have to take her in to have bloodwork done. In these circumstances (where we are almost certain that she just picked up Beth's mild bug) it's looking like they will just give us some antibiotics and send us home. We'll find out for sure tomorrow, though, when I take her in.

If you have a spare prayer, we'll take it. :)

More quotes

Beth: Ow, my arm! My capable arm!


Abbie, with a laugh: Mommy! I just made a poopie noise!

Awesome prayer, courtesy of Beth

Glory be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, about a strawberry, world without end. Amen!

Tidbits from today

Chris: Katie, I don't want to see you get so upset when you get an answer wrong. That is what homework is for -- practice! Nobody can be perfect all the time.

Katie: You mean like how you aren't perfect in running?

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Beth: Sometimes I don't feel loved. I know you love me, I know you do. But sometimes I just don't feel loved.

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Chris(about to lay his head on Beth's pillow): There aren't any boogers on here, are there?

Beth: There aren't any boogers on my pillow. But there are a lot of tears.

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Abbie and Beth are harder to quote, because the funniest part of most of what they say is the voice they say it in. But here's a try.

Me: Abbie, do you want me to hold your bottle?

Abbie: Yes please. But be careful! Don't spill it!

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Claire: Sometimes, at night? I think that there are spiders crawling all over inside my body. Spiders all over inside my body! (It would almost be more reassuring if we could blame this on on acid flashbacks....)

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Katie: Ew! Abbie is so dirty! I'm glad I'm not a baby because they always get so disgusting when they eat.

Claire: I love getting dirty!

links...

I just figured out how to use the link section, so if you'd like me to link to you just let me know!!!

Fr. Andy, I took the liberty of linking to your blog already, just because I still think it's so cool that you are actually a priest now. I'm tempted to tell some stories about you (um, Prague???) but I'll refrain out of respect. :) I hope you don't mind being linked by a decidedly non-heady blog!

Any other takers?