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?

see ya, sucker!

Actually, Abbie's Occupational Therapist is a wonderful woman, and she has been great with Abbie. I'll actually miss her. But she's outta here!

Yup, Abbie is doing well enough that she was discharged from OT yesterday. We'll still probably see a PT/OT through the state about twice a week, but Abbie's last evaluation has her just a month or two behind where she should be.

This is such a happy moment for us. Chris and I were talking last night about our friends' daughter, who is a year younger than Abbie, and who has recently begun to crawl. I remember when they came to visit right after Abbie's first surgery, and I realized that Ella was stronger and more mobile at 3 months than Abbie was at 17 months. It made me so sad, and it really drove home just how much the surgery had affected her.

But here we are, a mere four months later, and Abbie is back to crawling up and down the stairs and running around the house. She can totally dust Ella if she wants to!

It's crazy how resiliant she is. The OT told me yesterday that Abbie is really doing everything, naturally, that she needs to do in order to improve. I know that she is really too young to feel sorry for herself, but it is still amazing to me that she just keeps chugging away despite all of the trauma she has gone through. And she keeps smiling, and laughing, and teasing everybody with that sweet little way that babies have.

Holy cow, I love this kid.

Tricky

Today is the first Football Sunday of the season! All must now bow down to the big-screen tv, and the large men running around on it.

This is an important time for Chris. He bought all of the girls brand-new Ravens shirts, and then he hunkered down in the basement to revel in the first full day of football since last year. It's been a long, sad off-season for him.

The girls were really great today, spending some time watching the game with him downstairs but mainly playing either upstairs or outside.

And then, about an hour before bedtime, Katie revolted.

She did it subtly. It could not have been more smooth had she been a criminal mastermind who had spent months planning it with a crack team of other criminal masterminds.

I was working on assembling a bookcase in the living room, and Katie quietly slipped away and went downstairs. Where she told Chris that she thought I needed his help. And then casually mentioned that she might flip the channel - just for a minute - while he was away.

I didn't need help. Chris came upstairs just long enough to ascertain this, and then he immediately realized that he had been snookered.

Maybe she really did think that I needed help. I was using tools and stuff, and maybe that seemed like the sort of thing a pregnant woman shouldn't be messing with alone. Or maybe she just wanted to catch up on a few minutes of Animal Planet. It was probably a mixture of both. But the fact is, no-one could have read the situation better and then turned it to her own advantage better than Katie did. Except Chris.

This may seem like I am bragging about my child being sneaky, but that's really not the case. I know she sincerely thought I needed help. But when she acted on her assumptiom, she knew it was only an assumption and she knew it would buy her a few minutes with the t.v. And it makes me laugh, because that is pure Chris. She may not look just like him, but she more than any of the girls is her father's daughter. Chris writ small, and female, and way too smart.

Microcosm

Chris: All I want is to get a little bit of peace in this world.

Me: I think having five kids was the wrong way to go about that.

This happened last week, but it still has me giggling

One good thing about the older girls going to school is that Claire and Abbie have suddenly become Big Buddies. Previously, they were really more Tolerant Rivals, so I'm glad to see the change.

My mom asked me the other day if I have to worry about Claire overpowering Abbie, but the truth is that, despite her sweet and gentle demeanor, if there is any bullying going on between the two of them I can almost be guaranteed that Abbie is not the victim.

For example:

Last week the two younger girls were playing in the living room while I was helping the two older ones with homework. At some point Claire decided to abandon the game, and she went to the basement door to go downstairs. Abbie was following right on her heels, though, and slammed the door shut before Claire could get through. So Claire opened the door again, and again Abbie slammed it shut. This happened three or four times before Chris, who was in the basement and thought that Claire was just playing with the door, yelled up to her to leave the door closed.

Claire moaned at how unfair it was, but the look on Abbie's face said it all. She knew she was the victor. Abbie very gently took Claire's hand, and in a tone that implied just accept it and be a good loser, said to Claire, "Come on, dear" and led her back to the living room.

And Claire went.

Our family is beginning to cramp our style....

I just realized today that we really need to change our Sunday morning mass routine.

We have always been the types who sneak into the church mere seconds before the processional begins. (OK, in the interest of honesty-- sometimes it's during the processional.) We have a hard time gettting there early. I don't really even know why; it has always been like this, even before the advent of our children. Even before marriage -- I barely made it to mass on time back in the days when the only person I needed to concern myself with was me. I have some very fond memories of running through campus in high heels, trying to maintain modesty while still achieving maximum speed. (This differs from my weekday college memories, where I was still running, but in sweatpants and tennis shoes, and I had farther to go.)

So, we have this problem. But now, instead of slipping into a pew in the back, we are faced with a more complicated scenario; we have to find a pew that will fit ALL of us, and we have to somehow do it as unobtrusively as possible while herding four (and soon to be more) squirrely little girls through the quiet church.

It can't be done. Let's face it, it just can't.

We have to change. Get our act together. Organize our lives. Get on the ball and all that.

Darn it.

First day of school.....a little late

So far, so good! Eh, more or less. Katie came home from her first day very happy, and claiming that she had already made a friend. Beth had a great time, too, although it's nearly impossible to get any details from her.

More later, but I wanted to get this picture up! :)

Scenes that warm the heart...

Peeking my head into the living room tonight, I saw Abbie, who was very tired tonight, laying on the floor. Beth had put a little pillow under her head, covered her with a baby blanket, and was just about to lay down beside her to read her a story.

I love it when they take care of each other!!!

Just for my own amusement

Let's see if this works

Good answer

Yesterday, Abbie was doing her "Mommy pilllow!" routine, where she insists that I lay with her on the couch. I was getting frustrated because there were things I needed to do, and at one point I snapped, "Abbie, I am really not that great!"

Beth, who overheard me, immediately replied, "Well Mom, to her you ARE"

Not the answer we were expecting

I am not feeling very well today. Maybe it's the death-throes of my twenties, maybe it's the sleepless nights due to the steroids that Abbie is on, or maybe, just maybe it's the baby making me sick.

As I was laying on the couch in a stupor this afternoon, after conspicuously and rudely crashing in front of a friend who was here visiting (and who had so nicely brought us dinner -- I'm so sorry I was grouchy, Vanessa!), Chris jokingly told the girls that the baby was being naughty in my tummy. He loves to bait them, so he turned to Claire and asked her, "Should we spank the baby? That's not nice to make Mommy sick!"

Claire calmly turned to him and said, "No. That would be disgusting. She would have blood everywhere."

Uh -- who would have......? what would.....? I so do not want to know what Claire was visualizing in her head!

Poolside Reflections

The girls and I were having a quiet afternoon in the pool, when the differences between boys and girls became very, very clear to me. At first we were all just calmly doing our own thing - Claire and Beth were cruising the perimeter of the pool, Katie was swimming from one side to the other, and I was lounging and reading. The change came within seconds -- the quiet sounds of gentle splashing suddenly turned to screams and squeals, the calm water of the pool began to violently splash over the sides, the very air was charged with chaos. What made this huge difference? Chris.

He is incapable of #1 - getting into the pool without a big jump and splash #2 - refraining from picking up every body in sight and tossing them around. He even threw me, which is no small feat!

It's fun, I have to admit, to have this overgrown little boy horsing around. But he can't understand why the girls get nervous when he gets near them, and we can't understand why he can't just.....leave us alone. It would be boring without at least this one boy around. But it would be quieter! ;)

On another note:

Claire is a fish. Seriously, she is just a natural swimmer. If you toss her in the pool, she immediately starts to swim. The only problem here being -- she can't actually swim with her head above the water, but man she can zip around anywhere with it undernieth.

(For the life of me, I can't remember how to spell "underneith." Does the i come first or the e??? All those years of spelling lessons down the drain!)

It is just the cutest thing to watch her go, so fearlessly, in the water! It makes us both so happy. Little Larry in her natural element. Except that she doesn't have gills. And she thinks she does.

Growing up........kind of

Yesterday, I took Katie and Beth with me to the evening mass. Afterwards, while Beth picked acorns for her "nature collection" (a plastic bag with various rotting and molding specimens from the great outdoors. This is her greatest treasure, and she always "needs" to pick up a new acorn after mass,) Katie paraphrased the homily for me. She remembered it remarkably well, and had understood the gist of it.

Afterwards, we ran to the pharmacy and then to the store, and Katie bagged the groceries while I used the self-checkout. As we left, I complimented her on the great job she did bagging (she really did!) and she replied, "Well, I was just pretending that I was on Endurance (a rip-of off Survivor for kids) and I had their music in my head."

After reflecting a moment, she said, "I think I'm becoming very grown up. I have a lot of grown-up thoughts now."

Not Everything that happens in Vegas...stays in Vegas

I'm pregnant.

Stop. Take a moment to breathe. Yes, I am pregnant.

So....let's chat for a moment. I am guessing that a lot of people will hear this news, and think, "What? These people are crazy!!! Don't they already have a baby -- a baby with a brain tumor??? Haven't they already had to make major life changes because they are already overwhelmed? Stupid, rabbit-like breeding Catholics!"

Well, here is the truth: I have moments when I am very scared. I don't know what our life is going to look like 8 months from now. We know that Abbie will need 6 weeks of radiation, but we don't know when that will be. We don't know how sick the chemo will make her, or if it will even work at all. I don't know what it will be like to have the girls in a traditional school - as the first day looms, I'm starting to wonder if we've actually just created more work for ourselves rather than less. I can't see the future, and it worries me that this baby will arrive in a time of chaos, frustration, or - dear God forbid - sorrow. I am afraid.

This, though, is also the truth: I have moments when I am filled with an absolute glowing joy, thinking of the life growing quietly inside of me. In my heart I knew that our family was not yet complete, and it is exciting and wonderful to think that our family has not yet been defined, and that we are one step closer to becoming who we were meant to be. And I can think of many, many positives this baby will bring to our family. I am excited. We are all excited, and we are all happy to have something so positive - an adorable, sweet-smelling, funny little baby- to look forward to.

So, there we are. Feel free to discuss among yourselves, I just ask that you keep the three Socratic filters in mind while you discuss my family:

• Is it True?
• Is it Useful?
• Is it Good?

(And P.S. to Carol B. -- this title was just for you!!!! :) )

The next phase

We had Abbie's oncology appointment yesterday, and they told us that they do not really expect chemotherapy to shrink the tumor at this point. We are starting a new protocol, but this is really just to buy time before we have to move to radiation. The danger of radiation is much higher in children under 3, so if we can get through this next year and a half without the tumor growing it would be best.

So she's be getting a new chemo every day for five days, and then we'll have a 28 day reprieve. Then five days of chemo again, etc. After the second round, we'll get another MRI to see if the tumor has spread. If it hasn't, then they'll put her on a regimen where she will be getting chemo every day - the initial stronger medication layered with other, less-intense, medication. If the tumor HAS grown, though, we will need to move straight to radiation regardless of her age.

The biggest danger with this chemo is her platelet count -- so we'll be monitoring that closely. And, of course, we are worried about the tumor continuing to grow. Please pray that the tumor stops growing with this new medication -- we just need to squeak through these next 18 months. I am resigned to the need for radiation, but the longer we can hold it off, the better.

Regardless of when she gets it, though, it will probably not happen here. Because of her age, they recommend that we take her to Boston, where they have some super-new radiation thing that will affect less surrounding tissue. They are guessing that it will take about 6 weeeks, so, uh, that will be an interesting juggling act. I guess we'll just temporarily move to Boston? I don't know. But I guess that's really the least of our problems right now.

Hard decisions and brave little girls

We are not going to homeschool this year.

This decision comes by many hours of anguished prayer and hard, hard thought. But with all that we have going on in this family right now, I have to be honest with myself and face my limitations as a parent, and as a homeschooler. And it's just all too much, it is something that I know I can't do well this year.

So we told Katie and Beth two days ago, and my heart was in my throat as we sat them down at the table. In the end, I couldn't compose myself, and Chris had to do all the talking. Katie was, as we knew she would be, very upset. She loves Christiana, and she loves her friends there, and she loves having me work in the nursery. But I can't tell you how proud, and amazed, and humbled I was to watch this little girl have her cry out, and then pull herself together and just.......accept the change. She hasn't whined or complained or moped since; instead this 6 year old kid has listed the positive things that will come from going to "regular school," and has talked to me about ways she'd like to stay in touch with her CHA friends.

This is a blow to Katie, no mistake. But she's handled the bad news with more grace and dignity than most adults I know, and I am so so so proud of her. What a brave kid. What a smart kid. My hope now is that in the future I can handle major change with the grace of my little redheaded daughter.


(Oh, and Beth? Her reaction was very typical Beth: "Um, okay!" and off she ran to play in her room.)