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.