Hot chocolate anyone??

SNOW fell at our "lodge house" today!!! (I call it that so in my mind I'm on a perpetual ski vacation) Wahoo! By 8:30 a.m. all the kids were dressed to the point of immobility and ready to go out and play. The snow here is so beautiful! It's so rare that each flake is cherished...and eaten if it doesn't melt first... Even Michael was dressed up in Emily's old snowsuit and went out with us. (that explains the baby diva look...) School was cancelled, so Bret was thrilled to go out and play with his neighborhood friends. We slid down the driveway on a makeshift sled; wicked fabulous! Went for a walk through the snowy streets, threw snowballs, and came home to find we were out of hot chocolate! CRAP! Oh well, Emily made cookies. Our friend Laura asked if they posted the closing of homeschool on the news...lol. Bret and 2 other boys just left to go and serve a funeral Mass...he's been doing a lot of them lately, and is making some CASH. Who knew? Is there an ethical concern with signing him up for funerals all through the summer I wonder??

Post-partem burst of energy

It always happens to me when my babies are around 8 or 9 mos. I suddenly feel like I'm BACK again. Like, my strength settles in, and I can DO STUFF again. Lift, work, and generally throw myself into things again. It's when I usually start working out; and tackling bigger projects. Yes, I've been busy and back in a routine for the last several months, but this is different...it's like I'm strong again. So yesterday, I vacuumed the whole house. Really good. You know, not just the surface obligatory stuff. And the day before, I put on the old sweats, and some old Nike's and headed outside to work in the yard and go for a quick walk in the cold air. Today, I walked a mile and then..drum roll....ran 7/10 of a mile!! I think that was the longest I've ever run without someone (Bret) forcing me to! And it wasn't killing me! So that was totally encouraging. I'm still working out a back injury from lifting my grandfather whenever he had fallen, but it seems a teeny bit better. I'm hoping the activity will also help speed the recovery.
Bret and I went to see that new Clint Eastwood movie tonight. The audience was funny....mostly grey-hairs (not quite blue-hairs...just grey) It was pretty funny. Low budget, had a Catholic effort (inaccurate here and there, but nice try) but entertaining to watch. Go see it if you get a chance. Little Bret and his basketball team are now 10-0, so they think they're pretty unstoppable. Great games to watch, although to be the mom is SO hard. You want to fly off the bench and have a "good talking to" to whomever just checked your son, or worse, FOULED him! Geez. I'm sure it's good manly character training, so I just stay planted on the bench, and keep breathing through it. Michael is full-on walking around the house now, with the occasional plunk down on his butt. Chub and diapers must be saving him. He's not really eating signifigantly yet, but he's sure sampling a lot, and making a mess. Lastly, the girls are forever wanting to hear stories about when I was a kid. Recently I've been telling them about lots of my skiing adventures in Vermont and Maine. Yesterday, Sophie came out in the living room ready for any beginner trail out there! She also, in an unrelated event tonight, was caught shaking, venting, and repeating, to a bottle of sprite. When asked why, she said, "I don't want people to burp a lot." So there you have it. Oh yeah, and to update the RASH...it's still here, but steadily fading in intensity and in itchiness. Freako, but pretty normal otherwise...:-)

The rash, the Russian, and the rest home

That's my life right now. The rash. A ginormous rash that has morphed all over my limbs, back and belly. It seems milder today, thankfully. The stress-related rash that makes me look like a lizard woman. The Russian. Feeling all gross from the RASH, I decided to get a quick trim of a haircut and spruce things up. "Tatianna," had done a good job with little Bret, so, what the heck? I had a babysitter with Bret there, so I went for it. Let's just say, "language barrier" and leave it at that. Now I'm covered in layers of hair that I didn't want. I have half my hair left. SIGH. Maybe some prenatals will speed that growth back!! The rest home. This week, I am relinquishing Gramp to a rest home. His issues have gotten too big for me, and he is falling so often now, it's downright dangerous for him and us. I swear the man is made of titanium. There you have it. I'm off to finish dinner.

A LLLLOOOONNNGGG day at St. Jude

Today was our 2 yr. post treatment check-up at St. Jude. STILL IN REMISSION!!!!! THANK GOD!!!!! Previously, we go in, draw blood, have bkfst., see Dr., and head home (once her bloodwork comes back still in remission.) Today, we arrived to see that our schedule was full of testing till 5:00 pm! I hadn't planned on this, and had girl scouts, a basketball game, an after school pick up, and boy scouts on the schedule! Lots of phone calls, one dead cell phone, and a couple of ruffled feathers and confusion later, we finally came home. Thank you so much to my friend Michele who not only picked up Bret from school, but then drove him to meet Bret for a game! I'll make it up to you I promise!! Going to St. Jude for a check-up is a multidimensional thing. It's hard to even put into words that will express what it's like. The kids love it! For them, it's like going to camp, where everyone knows and loves them! For me, my stomach is in knots for days before we go. It's like knowing you have a paper due that's worth 50% of your grade, but as if you're in a foggy dream, and don't know how to go about writing it. You live normal day-to day, but there's this foggy, nagging angst that you can't "fix" that gets closer and closer as the date approaches. Then there's the doubt...and the knowledge that you gained in the 3 yrs. of chemo. Is that a new bruise?? Rachael was really tired the other day....how will I handle the news of a relapse in front of the girls?? All of this is processing under the regular din of life's demands. Going back to St. Jude is joy and pain together. Gratitude to tears that they did all they could to save your baby. She's here and that's a miracle in itself. Pain that surges up from somewhere SO DEEP inside you when you hear the 'beep" of an iv pump going by you in the hallway, or smell their hand sanitizer. It's only fleeting; a flash of a memory; like getting hit again by a truck...but just a little. You keep saying to yourself, "did we really go through that?" Seeing the familiar chubbed out cheeks of a sweet bald child, being rocked by their stressed mom, and then a moment later, laughing with a nurse that helped you get through the night when your baby had pneumonia; or the sweet volunteer who became like a grandmother to your kids. Then halfway through the day I realize I have a mystery rash all over my legs...??? What the hell???? Stress???....manifests in many ways. Standing in the hallways, commiserating with moms who went through the same thing...as we cling to each other and say, "it's over...we HOPE." And all the while, coming up with fun things to do, places to venture in the hospital. You visit and revisit your faith in eternity as you walk those halls, knowing how many parents leave there without their kids. Some of them angry, some sad, some grateful that the suffering is over. You can't help it. Okay, enough for now. There's just not enough words to describe it, but today, there's the overwhelming relief that she's still all clear, and we don't need to go back for a whole year!!!!

Christmas

Well, I'll give the short summary of Christmas. It was so nice. We went to a beautiful midnight Mass, my family all came to visit...my sister's kids were able to experience their first Christmas, and their first visit from Santa...we celebrated my Grandfather's 98th bday all together...he requested fruitcake, which was the simple storebought "log," but later was a homemade one from (as Gramp says) "the good father," Fr. Bauer. I got to just hang out with my sibs and my aunt whom I rarely see anymore, so that was great. My parents were there, but we see them quite a bit, so, I'm not ignoring them, they're just not as NOVEL as my sibs are in my house! (go ahead and call me now mom...) It was chaotic and peaceful at the same time. The perfect mimic of life right??? Can't wait for the next time!