Round 6 is All Done

With lots of support along the way, we did it. Six rounds of chemo are complete. Today is day nine of round six and Dave is feeling better. The fatigue hung around a lot longer this time. He thinks it’s because he had to take an extra antibiotic that made him feel yucky. I think it’s because we didn’t have time to rest before this round. The last six weeks have been extremely busy. But now it’s over.


This round was a lot easier on me because I knew it was the last one. Just knowing that I don’t have to take him back for chemo in two weeks makes me ecstatic. There’s still a great big unanswered question in front of us, so we haven’t danced naked in the streets yet, but the relief of knowing that this phase of the process is over lifted a huge weight from my soul.

If you’ve seen him lately, you’ll know that is hair is already growing back. It started sprouting in earnest during the extra week after round four and he decided not to shave it again. He lost a few of the black ones after round five, but the gray ones? Well, I’m not sure you can kill them. They seem to be the cockroaches of hair. Even chemo doesn’t kill them. Now he has enough that it gets all crunched up on the side of the head when he’s sleeping like it used to. And now he actually has to dry it when he gets out of the shower, and he almost needs a brush. Ella walked by him in the living room the other night and said, “It looks like you’re growing some hair up there, buddy.” His eyebrows never did fall out completely but they did get thinner.

Next week he’ll have a PET scan and the week after that, we’ll know. Until then, we will rest in thankfulness that there isn’t a Round 7.

He Really is as Wild as His Hair

Ella has an obsession with Doc McStuffins right now and sometimes she asks to watch an episode at bedtime in place of reading books. Sometimes I let her. The other night while I was getting her settled in on the couch to watch, Dave said, "Look at Super Cat." Luke was coming down the hall with his folding Mickey Mouse chair and his Allstar baseball cap. Then he set it up and sat down to watch like he was at the ball park watching baseball rather than in our living room watching Disney.

Super Cat, ready for the ballpark or Doc McStuffins.

Here he is gettin' ready to ride with Ella's sunglasses, toy camera, and Sleeping Beauty high heels and Dave's mother's pink plastic rolling dog. Yes, it's old and a little creepy. He loves it.

Ready to Ride

And here he his all discombobulated after his first attempt to ride the pink dog. What? That doesn't look like a riding toy to you? Me either, but apparently anything with wheels that's big enough for him to sit on is a riding toy.



The Spill

He gave it another go, sans sunglasses, high heels, and camera. That face tells you what kind of noise the pink dog makes when it's rolling.

Back in the Saddle

Dave and I have been sorting and cleaning and putting away Nana's things all weekend so our children have been sort of... free range. Yesterday, Dave said, "Amanda, you have to come in here and see this!" And this is the "this". That's a Little Coupe he's sitting on. He is apparently just light enough that it doesn't roll over when he scales the side of it like he's part monkey. A monkey that wears an ugly blue cap on a regular basis. As you can see, he was very proud of himself.



Large Riding Toy

It's Olympics time again. Dave and I love the Summer Olympics. We are diligently working to indoctrinate Ella and Luke into our two-weeks-of-late-night-TV-watching-sports-overload-every-four-years love. It's so serious that we even broke our own "no TV at the table" rule so we could watch the US women's synchronized divers win silver. I'm trying to teach Luke to chant, "USA! USA!" So far, they both really love diving and gymnastics (which Luke refers to as "nasties"). When the divers dive, Luke yells enthusiastically, "Jump HIGH!" or "Jumpin' on the bed!" We've told him it's water. He doesn't care. Ella stayed up until nine tonight to watch the women's gymnastics and then asked me to save the rest so she can watch it tomorrow.

This is how they watched synchronized diving this afternoon. Luckily, the arm of our couch is multi-functional. Shortly after I took this picture, it turned into gymnastics equipment as they took turns vaulting off the ottoman and back flipping over the arm of the couch.

Future Olympians? Circus Performers?

 Yes, they can both back flip over the arm of the couch.

One More Artifact

I had been looking for this at Nana's house and Dave just found it in a box.

Last Thanksgiving, we had breakfast with Nana and Ella said the blessing for us. In our house, we call the blessing "the ABCs"; you can see why below. Ella learned this at preschool and taught it to Nana  that day. She was so excited about it that she wrote it down and asked Ella to write her name on the paper.

Ella's Blessing

This was during Ella's Fancy E phase. These days, she usually opts for a simple E and she usually writes from left to right.

Artifacts

We spent our weekend sorting through Nana's things and cleaning out her house. As I said before, she wrote notes about everything. We found them everywhere. Bits of history, dates, family news written on scraps of paper, the backs of pictures, on the bottom of furniture - like she is still telling her story. A lot of it was passed down through oral tradition, but it was obvious that there were things so important to her that we needed to know it, even if she wasn't there to tell it.

These are some of my favorite things.

This first picture was actually from her house in Ensley, where she lived for 30 years before moving to Gardendale. When we were dating, Dave took me to the house to show me these footprints in the sidewalk. They are his. He estimates that he was about three when the city poured the sidewalk and Nana helped him make his footprints in the wet cement. The day after she died, we went back there and I took this picture.


He still has square feet. So does Ella. 

Nana's sister-in-law, who apparently only went by the name Big Sister, was a ceramics artist. We found dozens of ceramic pieces that she made, all of them with her mark on the bottom. Some of them have stories, and some of them we just kept because they were around for forever. No one knows the story about this Native American woman, but she lived in Nana's house for as long as Dave can remember. I especially like her because she is wearing her baby. I wish I had asked Nana if she wore her baby.   

Papoose

Big Sister also made this frog, and it lived in Nana's bathroom with its mate. Ella always tried to put its pipe back in its mouth. She was fascinated by the frogs. When I asked if I could bring them home for her, I found out that it was Dave who originally broke the pipe off of his mouth. I unpacked them when we got home and showed them to Ella; I asked her if she wanted to keep them on her bookcase in her room where they wouldn't get broken. She told me, "No, I think I'll just keep them in my bathroom like Nana kept them in hers." I'm on assignment to find a shelf for them so they will be out of reach of little hands.

He reminds me of The Wind in the Willows.

Meet Agatha Peabody. She was Dave's mother's doll when she was a little girl. I do not know if she named her Agatha Peabody or if the doll came with that name. That's another question I wish I had asked Nana. Miss Peabody has been around since the 1940s and Nana made the clothes she is wearing. Ella used to play with her at Nana's house. She has a porcelain head and limbs, so we made a place for her on the dresser. Ella understands that she might break and has already asked me who made the little chip on the bottom of her shoe. I didn't know the answer.

Miss Agatha Peabody

I took a few pictures of Nana's journal entries, namely the ones that mentioned my Round 5 meltdown and her phone call that lifted me up. Also, notice her notes about the Braves game.

Nana's July 6, 2012 Journal Entry

Dave found this baby picture of himself in a box today and brought it to me with Luke's 12 month picture. He couldn't believe he was making the same face that Luke made in our favorite picture of him. Didn't I tell you our children look like him? The only thing they got from me was slightly lighter hair.

Luke at 12 months, Dave around 12 months

Finally, I leave you with this horrifyingly funny bit of ceramic. I don't know if I should laugh or run screaming from it. I'll opt for laughter.

Scary, laughing elf?

We Are Not Vegetarians

Not that it was a secret, but Ella made it quite clear during our conversation on the way home yesterday that we are not vegetarians.

While we are driving, we point out all the things we see. Luke sees lots of big trucks and boats these days. Ella sees everything. As we passed by a yard with a donkey grazing beside the road, I pointed it out to her. She saw it and thought about it for a minute or two before she asked, "Mama, what kind of food does donkey food make?" 

It gave me pause. I tuned into my internal Preschooler Language Manual and desconstructed her question until I came up with this: "Do you mean "donkey food" like bacon comes from pigs?"

Ella: Yes.

Score! I guessed correctly.

Me: They just make donkey meat. We don't really eat donkeys.
Ella: Why not?
Me: Well, there are some animals we raise for food, like pigs and cows and chicken, and some animals that have jobs to do, like horses and donkeys that are for riding or pulling loads, and some animals we hunt for food, like deer and turkey.
Ella: Oh.
Me: I guess you could eat donkey meat if you were starving and there wasn't any other food, but generally we don't eat donkey.
Ella: But can you buy donkey at the store?
Me: No.

And thank goodness because I would probably have to learn how to cook it.

The Port: He Love-Hates It

One of the bits of information I went looking for but had trouble finding at the beginning of this cancer journey was documented personal experience with “the port.” It’s such a generic phrase and there are lots of different kinds of ports with different purposes. I understood the idea, but I didn’t satisfy my curiosity about it until Dave actually had his put in and the nurse put the owner’s manual in my hands. Finally, I had information to devour.

I suspect that not many people write about it or post pictures of it because... well, because of a lot of reasons. I obtained Dave’s permission to write this post about it so that information will be out there for the next person who needs it. He told me I could include pictures from the manufacturer’s website, but I am forbidden to post a picture of it in his body because it is too personal.

Dave has a Bard PowerPort that looks like this. This picture is enlarged to show detail; it’s actually about the size of a quarter.

I don't know why they make them purple.

It lives in the right side of his chest. If you put your left thumb in the dip between your collar bones and spread your fingers comfortably on the right side of your chest, the port would be between your pinky and ring fingers. Outpatient surgery with twilight drugs is required to put it in (mainly to keep everything sterile but also for the good drugs), and it requires a 2 inch incision where the actual port goes in and another centimeter length incision a couple of inches above that to help guide it into position. I think Dave’s procedure took about thirty minutes.

This is what it looks like inside the body.

The port goes right under the skin and the catheter is threaded into a blood vessel. He had soreness in his shoulder for a couple of days after the surgery, but it didn’t require narcotics. I don’t think he even took ibuprofen.

The little incision was closed with a dissolvable stitch and the 2 inch incision was closed with steri-tapes, because the oncology nurses would have to access it two days later for chemo. He had to keep it dry for 7 days, so we bought those giant square Band-Aids to put over it while he showered. For a couple of weeks, it was swollen so it just looked like a knot under his skin. Now, you can see the three little palpation bumps through his skin when he’s not wearing a shirt. Otherwise, you don’t even know it’s there when he’s wearing his usual t-shirt / dress shirt combo. This is the benefit of being a man. If it were in my body, you would be able to see it at the necklines of some of my shirts.

It eliminates the need to start an IV line for each chemo session and eliminates the need to draw blood from a vein in his arm. I believe they might also be able to access it to inject the radio-active glucose for the PET scan; we’ll find out about that in a few weeks. They spray the skin with Dermaplast, or something like it, to numb it before they stick him so he never has to feel the stick. That is how they draw blood to check his counts and how they hook up the IV for the chemo.

They use a special needle (a Huber needle) to access the port and it looks like this when it’s ready to be hooked up to the IV.

Obviously the "tag" is the only part you see.

Ella would have called this part a “tag” when she was younger. All the patients have tags sticking out of their shirts while they are waiting for a chair in the treatment room.



Once the treatment is over, they take it out and stick a cotton ball on top of the prick with a Band-Aid. He has to leave it on for a few hours in case leaks. We haven’t seen it leak, but that’s what the nurse told us after the first treatment.

It has titanium in it so it will show up on an x-ray and possibly set off metal detectors.

Sample X-Ray

For that reason, he carries an identification card in his wallet. He also wears a purple bracelet so that if he has an accident and finds himself unconscious, the medical staff will know that he has a port and what kind it is.

When it’s time to take it out, he’ll schedule an in-office appointment with the surgeon to remove it. He doesn’t have to be in the OR for that part. He’ll probably keep it for at least a year after he finishes chemo, just in case. And because it makes the blood draws so much easier.

He hates it because it is a foreign object in his body that you can see from the outside. He is very aware of it and it feels weird. He also hates the reason he has it. He loves it because it makes the whole experience a little more comfortable for him, needle hater that he is.

The pictures are from the Bard website.

Nana

At the age of 90, Nana, Dave’s grandmother, raised, or played an important role in raising, three generations of children and then filled her arms full with a fourth generation of babies.

She was a child of the Great Depression, truly understanding what it means to have nothing and considering FDR a real-life hero for helping her family get back on their feet with his “40 acres and a mule” program.

As an adult, she was a beautician by trade, cutting hair for years and years in a beauty shop in Midfield – and part of that time she worked side-by-side with Tammy Wynette, before she was famous, of course.

She learned to dance the Charleston at the young age of 80-something and loved it, despite the fact that Baptists don’t dance.

She was a hardcore Braves fan who could talk baseball for hours if you were willing.

She has sisters and cousins and nieces and nephews spread all over the South and she kept up with them – who was sick, who had babies, whose birthday was coming up. That family surrounded her for her 90th birthday party and ended with an extended visit with her sister. She was positively giddy about it.

She kept lists and notes about every occasion – menus, who visited, the funny things the kids said, what we did or talked about. She wrote down everything so she could think about it again later. I thought this was a funny habit when I first met her, and now I find myself doing the same thing.

She lost her only child in 1992. And her husband 4 years later. She didn’t let that stop her from praising God.

She was everyone’s grandmother. She loved me as if I were her own blood when I joined the family and I spent hours talking to her the way I wish I had talked to my own grandmothers. I was too immature to know what I was missing then; she gave me a second chance.

When we visited, she made sausage balls because we love them and she played and played with the kids - sitting in the floor to build castles with the wooden blocks she kept for them, and occasionally, chasing them around the living room, laughing like she was one of them.

She was wise; the kind of wise that only comes with watching the world change and change again for nearly a century and learning from it.

She was prayerful; thanking God for every day He made and the people He put in it.

And at the end, she was peaceful, knowing her work on Earth was finished and her reward was very near.

Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33

She was the most faithful person I have ever known. She has overcome the world.

This is Nana.

March 3, 1922 - July 12, 2012

Nana loved a lapful of babies.

Godspeed, Nana. Until we meet again…

Dinosaurs and Cell Phones Do Not Make Good Dinner Companions

At barely 4 and almost 2, I didn’t expect to be policing cell phone usage at the supper table. But I am. Our rule is well founded – no texting or talking at the table. Even I have been called out recently about checking my messages (though technically I don’t count it as “at the table” since some nights I barely sit at the table during meal time), and Grandmother recently had to excuse herself because she just couldn’t stop texting at the table. That led to another issue. Now Ella doesn’t text or talk at the table, but she does excuse herself to the other room to take a call or send a message.

Her phone obviously doesn’t have service, but she will make you think it does.

Now Luke has started bringing a phone to the table. They keep them beside their plates. Dave and I don’t even do that. I believe it’s time, at 2 and 4, that I enact my plan of collecting electronic devices in a bowl at supper time so that we can focus on each other at the table.

On that note, another something that apparently needs collection at supper time: a plastic Brontosaurus. Aside from cell phones, Ella never really brought toys to the table. Meal times are for eating and we consider eating to be serious business. Luke, however, has a habit of bringing an entourage to sit beside his plate so that he has someone with whom to share his meal. It could be a baby doll, his little Mickey and Goofy figures, a Barbie, and most recently, a plastic Brontosaurus. I generally don’t have an issue with guests at the table because they keep him focused on eating – a task that I often find challenging. But, when the guests get unruly, they have to be excused.

That is what happened to Brontosaurus Sunday night. He could not control himself. In his excitement at sharing a meal with Luke, he was galloping all over the table and into the plates of the rest of us. I was not amused (really I was but I had to act like I was not because I’m the mother). Brontosaurus had three chances to get himself under control but he just couldn’t do it. Dave had to send him to time out on top of the refrigerator.

Luke’s heart was broken. He cried and cried and every time he started to not cry anymore, he looked up at the top of the fridge and said, “Di-saur, up!” and cried again.

We live in a house of loosely controlled chaos most of the time, because we value play as an important job that kids – and parents - need to do. However, we also value eating a meal without fear of having our tea glasses charged over by a rogue Brontosaurus. Thus, our list of supper time rules is growing.

Ropers' Rules of the Table

1. Shirts are required. Once they are able to eat with utensils and no longer cover themselves in food, this rule goes into effect.

2. Phones are not allowed because we are eating together, not with whomever is on the other end of the line.

3. The TV is turned off because zombies also do not make good dinner companions.

4. Unruly toys must be excused.

Brontosaurus hasn’t been back for supper yet, but I’m sure we’ll give him another chance – now that he knows the rules.

Around the House

I've collected a little kid fun to share. These aren't as funny as some of the things they say, but they each tell a little story about how they are learning.

"I'm all full of hands." - Ella, while trying to open the door to go to the car one morning. Seriously, summer break is killing this Mommy Mule. They feel like they have to take so much stuff with them every day. They each have their regular backpacks with changes of clothes, etc. and they each have a little back pack stuffed with toys and an armload of books, babies, blankets, games, and whatever. The longer I let them wander around the house before we leave, the more stuff they need to take with them. It takes ten minutes to load the flippin' car.

"I did it, Mama!" - Luke, when he finally figured out how to get on the float in our back porch pool. This is also the first complete, grammatically correct sentence I've heard him speak.

"I don't feel like me today... I'm all tired and yawning. Yesterday I felt like me; today I don't." - Ella, on the way to Grandmother's one particularly tired morning.

"[Fake gagging noise] I burp! S'muse me." - Luke, he already loves bodily function noises, and also practicing his manners.

"I just call him Mr. Jumps-a-lot." - Ella, in response to my comment that Thumper already has a name. She often doesn't agree with the names that Disney chooses for the characters.

"Mama! Ehwa. Tee-tee potty!" - Luke, while running into the kitchen to find me because Ella had been calling and I didn't hear her. She didn't even send him to get me because she had locked him out of the bathroom; he did it on his own. Maybe because he is a sweet little brother, or maybe just to make the yelling stop so he could play in peace.

"Luke, you are NOT THE SAVIOR!" - Ella, clarifying Luke's position in this world when he tried to interrupt Barbie Bible School. Yes, our Barbies go to Bible school, and no, Luke is not the Savior of the world.

"That was like a movie star restaurant!" - Ella, enthusiastically, after her first visit to the Main Street Tavern for supper. The food was good, the place was clean, we saw people we hadn't seen in a while, but I'm not sure I'd say it was a movie star restaurant. However, I am not four.

My Dark Place

I have been struggling.

Or wallowing, if you like, in a pit of negativity, worry, and bitterness. It wasn’t the devil this time, at least he wasn’t in control the way he was the last time I got like this. I’m sure he has been poking at me, taking advantage of my weakness, but this time it was all me. I’ve been doing the things I am supposed to do – filling my heart and mind with praise and worship and Bible reading – but I’ve still acted like the unworthy sinner that I am and relished the wallowing instead of overcoming it.

It’s why I haven’t blogged in a while, or written anything at all. I’ve learned that when I get like that, it’s best to stay away from the blog lest the bitterness ooze out in my words and be preserved forever. That’s not what I want, though it’s probably when I should be writing the most.

I’ve also worried that some of you are tired of reading about cancer or just tired of reading what I write at all, so in my mind, I quit writing a thousand times. In my mind, I shut down the blog and my Facebook page. As punishment – though I don’t know who the punishment is directed at except me. When I’m despairing, I withhold information because I assume that no one cares what I have to say or what I’m struggling through. People have their own lives to live, their own struggles to attend to. They don’t need my drama on top of that. I know what it’s like to be filled to the brim, stretched to capacity with struggle, trying not to overflow on the nearest person who makes a well-intentioned but poorly worded comment that I take badly simply because I cannot process anything else. I don’t want to be the commenter and I try to limit my exposure to the comments.

But truthfully, though I came very close, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shut down the blog. It’s been my own personal space on the web since 2006 and I couldn’t end it now just because I’m struggling to claw my way out of a pit. And, though I came much closer to deactivating my Facebook page, I couldn’t do that either. It’s where most of you pick up the blog link, and it gives me a comfortable channel of communication with people I want to be in contact with that I would probably never call on the phone, because I’m very bad at calling people.

So I’ve been in this pit, worrying and trying to figure out if I should continue to blog about our journey through cancer and chemo or if enough is enough already, until last night when Dave’s Nana called to check on him. He had his fifth round of chemo on Monday (most of you didn’t know because I didn’t tell). We talked for a few minutes and she gave me the perspective I needed to resolve my wallowing two-fold. First, she told me, “I asked the kids [the ones who live near her] if you had posted anything on the Internet or whatever you do, but they said you hadn’t.” Nana is 90, if you’ll remember – it was her birthday party we missed the day after Dave had surgery. Even she is looking to the Internet for information, though she doesn’t have a computer of her own. Then, when I reluctantly told her that Dave wasn’t home because he was playing golf (yes, two days after chemo), she responded with laughter and, “That’s wonderful! That made my day that even though he feels bad he’s playing golf.”

Indeed. That’s exactly how I feel about it, too. My heart rejoices when he says he wants to try to play a few holes because it means he’s feeling a little better, even if just for an hour or two. I haven’t been forthcoming with this information because I assume that people will think, “If he’s well enough to play golf then why is she making such a big deal about all of this chemo business?” But golf or not, it is a big deal and thanks to Nana for snapping me out of it.

I will assume that if you are tired of reading about cancer, you will not be visiting this blog for a while, and that if you are here reading, you are interested in knowing what is going on with us. I can’t stop writing it, and while we know that life goes on around cancer, it doesn’t stop it from being.

Round 5, we’re in the middle of it. He’s not feeling well yet, but he did manage a round of golf. It’s cathartic for his mind and makes him feel like he’s doing something productive for his body. The goal in the 48 hours after chemo is to flush out the poison with fluids and sweating. He sweats plenty while simply sleeping, but when he feels well enough to get up and move around, he likes to sweat in the sunshine while doing something. He woke up truly hungry today and he went to his office, but only after, “Where’s my Zofran, woman?” Can you see how crazy this is? He feels okay one hour and bad the next, he doesn’t need the anti-nausea meds for half a day some days and but he might need it before he gets out of bed the next. Roller.Coaster. Anyway, we are both back at our respective offices today, reclaiming normal. He has another nine days of medicine to take before this cycle moves into the rest phase and we relax into the fun week.

Though the 4th of July wouldn’t have been our first choice for chemo week, it was nice to have a day off in the middle of it. The kids soaked him up. They usually go four or five days of barely seeing him during chemo week (because he goes to bed so early) and they miss him terribly. Our day off yesterday gave them time to play with him during the hours when he was feeling well, and play they did. Together and apart, they were all over him all morning – Barbies and trains and babies and games, until he cried Uncle and I herded them out to the pool for a while. This morning Luke woke up and immediately told him, “Daddy! Play!” When he had to leave him alone with his trains to get ready for work, Luke came running into the kitchen to tell me, “Mama, Daddy work!” It’s as if even the littlest one recognizes the good of him going back to the office after a few days of feeling bad.

"On my birthday I'll be four. When will I be 2 again?"



4 Year Old Ella

Though she is still trying to wrap her mind around the thought that she will only get older, never younger, Ella is four years old today. My reserved, anxious, headstrong baby has grown into a socially confident little girl. She is still headstrong but she can't help it - everyone in my house is and we respect that.

For her party over the weekend, we treated our friends and family to our favorite summer pasttime: front yard swimming. (Truly, we'd love for it to be backyard swimming, but our backyard is more suitable as a parking lot, unless you prefer swimming in mud. I don't - especially when the floors are clean. One day - one day - there will be grass back there. I just know it.) She could barely contain her excitement from the time she woke up (at 7:30) until party time. She'd been planning her party for a month and a half and she was ready for everyone to be there at 8.

Four year old Ella finally sleeps through the night consistently (meaning all the time unless she's sick). This started about six months ago and she's been doing it long enough now that I've stopped expecting her to wake up during the night. It's fabulous. In addition to sleeping through the night, she often falls asleep in her own bed by herself while I'm getting Luke to sleep for the night. That just started happening in the last two months. Sometimes she's still awake and I cuddle her, but lots of times she's already asleep when I peek in there.

She has a few chores to do around the house and she gets very upset if she misses the opportunity to do them (because sometimes I forget that they are her chores now and do them first). She is in charge of feeding Georgia and Gypsy, keeping her shoes put away in her shoe rack, and clearing her plate from the table. Sometimes she gives Luke his medicine when he refuses to take it from me. If she finds me folding laundry, she asks to fold the wash rags and socks. She helps me cook and I've taught her how to use a knife (yes, a real one) to cut vegetables. We recently made homemade pizza, and she did 90% of the work, under my direction.

She is still doing gymnastics once a week and she's already talking about playing soccer again in the fall. Just as the spring season was ending, she was really gaining her confidence during the games, so I'm glad she wants to give that another try.

She loves playdates and recently went on her first one without me or Grandmother going along. Her friend from Florida was in town to visit her grandmother and they went to the local petting farm and out to lunch. While I nearly had a coronary about her going without us, she jumped at the chance to play with another little girl without her brother around.

She still loves to teach school and gymnastics and take care of babies but now she also likes to play Barbies and doctor her dolls and stuffed animals. Sometimes she works on their teeth, too. She tells us she wants be a cheerleading dentist when she grows up.

She is infinitely curious about everything from human anatomy to the reason septic tanks are smelly. I'm constantly amazed with what she observes and the questions she asks. She still loves to be read to and now she likes to spell the words that she sees (on flashcards, signs, anywhere, really). She's starting to learn basic addition, though she doesn't know that yet. She loves Sunday school and learning about God and she regularly prays or asks me to pray for our family and/or a whole list of others that she's thinking about.

She has a sweet, sweet heart and she is starting to understand that she has responsibilities as a member of our family. I am amazed at how fast she's changing and I love to watch her grow.

Edited to include a better picture.

Ella's Bad News

Backstory: Luke has taken a lovin' to riding in our red wagon. He's very cutely insistent when he decides he needs a ride, climbing into his seat and asking me, "Ready?" When he asked for a ride yesterday before Dave got home, I had to decide if I had the energy to pull them both. Ella wasn't feeling well enough to make her walk, and though she wanted to stay home by herself, I obviously couldn't do that. I decided, "What the hey? It's a good butt and thigh work out." So I loaded them up, leashed the dog to the wagon (because I make her help) and proceeded to pull 85 lbs of kids plus wagon around the neighborhood. When we'd gotten about 1/3 of the way around our route I was working too hard to carry on a conversation with Ella, and she really felt too bad to have much conversation. However, when we rolled alongside a squished, dead squirrel she immediately piped up with, "Mama, what's that?!" I huffed out a short, "Dead squirrel," and continued on.

Fast forward to this morning's drop off at Grandmother's house where this conversation happened.

Ella: Grandmother! I have some bad news.
Grandmother: You do?
Ella: Yes, we went for a walk yesterday and there was a dead squirrel.
Grandmother: There was?
Ella: But it's okay because there are more squirrels. Like one hundred.

I guess squirrels are disposable.

Father's Day: I blew it.

This is the way I pictured Father’s Day weekend.


Saturday morning – Take the kids shopping to pick gifts for Dave, Papa, and Pop the Pop.

Saturday afternoon – Go to a birthday party.

Sunday morning – Make breakfast for Dave and go to church.

Sunday evening – Have supper with my dad.

This is how it really happened.

Friday morning – Yes, that’s right, Friday, 4:30 am, Luke threw up in our bed. While Dave cleaned up the floor (complimenting me on my cat-like reflexes as I jerked Luke up and suspended him over the side of the bed so that most of the vomit landed on the floor instead of the sheets) while I calmed Luke down, cleaned him up, took his temperature, gave him Motrin, and settled into the recliner with him. He threw up again. I calmed him down, cleaned him up, wrote off going to the office, moved to his bed for a couple more hours. Again, Dave cleaned up vomit from the floor and chair. I worked from home with two kids, and mostly held Luke all day. Aunt Becca came to help me for a little while by holding Luke so I could do some work and going to get us some lunch. While she was gone and I was holding Luke and listening to him breathe rapidly, I decided he needed to go to the doctor. His fever was still climbing despite a dose each of Motrin and Tylenol.

Friday afternoon – I took Luke to the doctor while Ella went home with Aunt Becca. He was running 101.8 fever in the office, tested negative for strep but had a blotchy throat. Doc thinks it’s hand, foot, and mouth disease and prescribed Tylenol with codeine to manage the pain while we wait for it to run its course and keep him hydrated, and oh, by the way, he can run fever like this for the whole 4 -5 days. I started shoring myself up for a long weekend of pain/fever management, toddler holding, and coercing him to drink.

Friday evening – Dave ran the errands to get the medicine (and shouldn’t have bothered since liquid narcotics are too nasty for a child to swallow) and brought me supper from Pop the Pop and Grandma’s house.

Friday night/Saturday (wee) morning - I slept with Luke because he started crying every time I moved from his side. Ella got up at 2:45 and got in bed with Dave. And I didn’t even know about that until mid-morning. That’s a miracle.

Saturday morning – Luke’s fever was gone and he was well enough to play in fits and spurts between needing to be held. Any tiny thing ruined the moment and made him inconsolable again. That went on all morning until he was just a melted down mess at nap time.

Saturday afternoon - I got Ella ready for the birthday party and she took Dave as her date while I held Luke for three hours while he napped. He woke up grouchy and stayed that way until supper when he finally decided he was hungry enough that he had to eat through the pain. After that, bath and bed.

Sunday morning – I woke up in Luke’s bed again, though I’d only been there half the night this time. He was ready to play but sill drooling buckets and crying, “mouth hurt.” Dave was already outside working on a project. I got Luke stabilized with Motrin and juice and went to the fridge to scrounge up breakfast. There were no eggs. No milk. No muffin mix. Nothing to make for breakfast. Why did I expect otherwise? I had not left the house in days. Luke and I went to the store for eggs. He ran barefoot through Lucky’s in a t-shirt and diaper, celebrating being out of the house, and I let him. At home, I cooked breakfast as fast as I could so Dave and Ella could eat before church. They left for church and I took my little petri dish to the grocery store, for real this time, and only because I had to.

Sunday afternoon – Papa and Grandmother came over for lunch. Luke slept another three hours and woke up happy. Ella was a complete grouch until I forced a nap on her. She woke up from nap still grouchy. I was at my wits end with being touched and needed and listening to crying/whining/grouchiness and it was oozing out of me. Dave left to go to Lowe’s for more things for his project and probably because we were unbearable. I put one kid in front of one TV and the other in front of the other TV and went to the shower – for the first time that day. At 4 in the afternoon. I sent my dad a text saying we would be there for supper because I had to get out of my house. After that, I put Ella in the shower, thinking it would improve her mood. It didn’t. She came out crying and complaining of a headache. I took her temperature and it was 102.2. I put her nightgown on her, gave her Motrin, and put her on the couch. Sent my dad another text, “Not coming. Ella’s running fever.” Changed into my pajamas and sat on the couch with Luke. He was grouchy again. I nursed Luke, patted Ella, and tried not to lose my mind.

Sunday evening – My dad brought us supper – happy Father’s day to him. I fed the kids and put them to bed, and then put myself to bed.

It was awful. The worst weekend we’ve had in a very long time. Thankfully, I'm learning to be flexible. And, thankfully, today is a new day. And, thankfully, Grandmother is willing to tag team with a feverish child so I could go to work today for a much needed break.

Round 4, Check.

There's not much to report this time since I found myself able to write during this round of chemo, and thus, less traumatized. In the previous treatment rounds, I've been sort of paralyzed by the whole thing but I guess I've adjusted more than I realized to this episode of our lives.

Once again, he moved straight from week one side effects to week two side effects without an energy crisis in between. I read recently that some cancer patients' experience their bodies adjusting to the low blood counts so they don't feel as exhausted in later rounds of treatement when the blood counts reach their lowest points. We know Dave's bottom out around day 7 and 8, but for the last two rounds he hasn't crashed during those days so I guess his body is compensating.

Here's a little education in layman's terms, if you want it (remembering that I got my medical degree from the University of Google). Lymphoma is a blood cancer, specifically of the lymphocytes - the parts of the white blood cells that make up the immune system. Essentially, some of the normal cells in his lymph system morph into cancer cells (like gremlins changing from cuddly cute things to monsters when they get wet). The chemo drugs he gets every three weeks are designed to wipe out his white blood cells so that the cancer cells that are mixed in with the normal cells will be killed. He also gets a shot with each round (24 hours later) that stimulates his bone marrow to make more white blood cells. That medicine helps his body recover his immune system, but it doesn't take full effect until day 7 or 8 of the cycle - thus, days 7 and 8 are when his white blood count (WBC) is the lowest. Starting day 6 of the cycle, he takes antibiotics for five days to protect his body from bacterial infections. This is also when he's supposed to stay away from crowded places (like the county jail) and sick people. Today is day 10 and his last day of antibiotics, and that means we are well on our way to the rest portion of this round.

Next week, he'll be feeling almost normal again and he gets a bonus week of rest this time. He and his doctor negotiated the next treatment for the first week of July to give his body a little extra time to make white blood cells and to accomodate his work schedule. This means extra fun time for us!

So, for two and a half weeks, we play and then onto the business of round five.

Another Lesson from Cancer: Flexibility

I am a rather inflexible person. I really like routine. I like knowing what to expect. I take comfort in the familiar. My biggest source of stress in any given situation is The Unknown. Followed very closely by Plans That Get Changed. It really, really bothers me when plans get changed suddenly.

This inflexibility is something I’ve known about myself for a while. In the past, it’s been something that drove Dave nervous (Incidentally, he is indecisive – the exact opposite of inflexible – you can see how that would cause, umm… discussions). I also had an evaluation at work one time that listed my inflexible nature as one of my areas for improvement. So…

I’ve been working very hard on being more flexible for years now, and I thought I was doing an okay job with it. I still might hate it when I’m asked to do something new, but at least now I can (usually) deal with it in stride rather than having a breakdown about it. My love of routine is really good for my small children, because kids like to know what to expect (especially kids like Ella). But I’ve realized lately that even though I’ve been working on it, I still keep a very rigid routine. I know this because I get text messages like, “Hey while you are out this morning and up that way how about stopping by the house we like….”, not because I told the sender that I was going that way but because I go that way every single Saturday at the same time of morning to grocery shop at the same Publix. I can’t help it, the other Publix stores in the area aren’t laid out the same and I hate it because it makes me forget things that I need.

I am so predictable that the people around me don’t even have to ask to know where I am on a Saturday. And I’ve probably written about it enough here that you knew it, too, even if you don’t talk to me in real life every week. That’s just so boring.

Do you know what doesn’t give a crap about your routine or what you have planned for tomorrow or next weekend or next year? Cancer. Do you know what that forces you to become? Flexible.

Dave and I had a conversation this morning about how we – our little family – have become more flexible since March. And we like it. We’ve spent that past few weekends meandering around with no solid plans in mind and it’s been wonderful. We’ve gone out to breakfast, made an impromptu visit to my brother-and-sister-in-law’s house in Gardendale (and it was reminiscent of how we used to just end up there on the weekends when we lived in Gardendale. And, I realized how much I’ve been missing them!). We had dinner with friends I had not seen since Ella was a newborn and we stayed out too late (with the kids!) and loved it. We’ve been to the Galleria, mostly just to ride the carousel – and I did ride it even though it makes me feel sick to go round and round – and I had fun because it’s been a really long time since I’ve actually ridden a carousel and because Luke was riding with me. We went to a birthday party. We shopped at a different grocery store and not always in the morning. Dave took Ella on a date while I cuddled Luke for a nap and watched movies on the couch instead of doing grown-up things like laundry and cleaning. We played in the pool when the weather was nice; we dragged a screaming kid on a walk because we needed it, even though it was rainy. Luke ate breakfast and lunch at the table in his room because he was playing and I didn’t care.

We are living The Unknown right now. I started this journey half afraid to make any plans, but now I realize that I half want to be open for entertaining our whims. I have planned exactly two things this summer: the kids’ birthday parties. And I almost decided to skip those altogether, but Ella will be turning 4 and I just couldn’t tell her we weren’t having a party. We don’t have a vacation planned. We don’t have every weekend booked from now until September. But there’s potential for those things. Maybe we’ll take a vacation. Maybe it will be to the beach, but maybe not. Maybe we’ll find a nice hotel with a good pool and just swim for a few days, somewhere other than in our yard. Maybe we won’t go anywhere at all.

All this un-commitment, this potential, this non-routine is rather freeing. Though living in a rut as deep as the Grand Canyon is comfortable for me, I get so stressed out and exhausted by the expectations and demands on my time, the sense of responsibility and obligation I force myself to uphold. Not that those are bad things – they are really good, but sometimes it’s suffocating. And sometimes I just need to breathe. Is it coincidental that cancer brought that breath into our lives? I doubt it; I don't believe in coincidence.

The Valet Parking Lady

As busy as the Bruno Cancer Center is and as much as I've been impressed with the nurses and doctors and office staff, there is one lady there who just blows me away: The Valet Parking Lady.


Today's parking spot.



We found out yesterday that she goes by the name of Suzy Q, and I'm ashamed to admit that it took us four treatments to learn this. Because she knew Dave's name the day after his first one. She never fails to call him by name and she knows when he's there for a long day of chemo and when he's just there for the quick shot (he gets a shot 24 hours after each round of chemo to help his body recover his white blood cells).

This space usually holds 1 or 2 more with
just enough room to drive around them to get out.




The lot was not full today.. there are usually
2 more cars squeezed in this space you see.



Suzy Q works in the hot stress of a parking lot with a seemingly unending flow of traffic - and she is always happy and caring when she talks to the patients. She also has mad parking skills. I'm astounded at the number of cars she can fit in this tiny lot. One day, when she allowed me to parallel park the car myself for our quick shot day, I sucked it up so bad that she offered to fix it for me and bring the keys inside to me when she was done - teasing me the whole time. Another day, she said, "I'm gonna park you right over there in the shade Mr. Roper 'cause we don't want you gettin' too hot."

She does a job that I would hate and she does it with a good attitude, even when the cars are lined up so no one can get in and out of the lot and it's 95 degrees outside. I don't know how much a parking attendant makes, but I know it's not millions. Her job is one that would be easy to glance over without much thought; I'm sure some people see her as a mere convenience so they don't have to find a parking spot. But she's more important than that.  She spends her days running all around the St. Vincent's campus so that cancer patients have only to walk into and out of the front doors to get to their cars - not because the parking situation is sketchy, but because sometimes even the walk to the front door is too far. I don't know if she realizes it, but she has a pretty powerful ministry going on right at the front door of a place where people really need ministering. Any random person could be parking cars there, but not many would do it with the love that she displays for the patients. 

There are so many cars parked that the entrance/exit is one lane.



I believe she has a spiritual gift of service and probably also of mercy, and she is putting them to good work every day.

Do people recognize my spiritual gifts from watching me live my life? I'm not so sure...

Chemo Day

The waiting room at the Bruno Cancer Center is a bizarre and busy crossroad of lives. I sit in a chair in the corner,  so I can see the majority of the room (save for the chairs that are blocked by the aquarium in the middle) but most importantly, the door where Dave goes in. I like to watch the traffic and try to guess who is here for the first time, who is in the middle of treatment, and who is here for follow up. I want to see the nurses when they come out in case one of them is looking for me.

Also, I've scoped out the place and my chair is one of the few next to an electrical outlet, which is necessary if I'm going to work while I wait.  Sometimes I work, sometimes I Google, sometimes I read. Today, I've done a little of all of that and addressed birthday party invitations for Ella. Last time, I worked the whole day, with my business all spread out around me, talking on the phone and annoying my fellow waiters. I sent my dad a message that day to tell him, proudly, that I had been acting just like him all day. (When he waited with me for Dave to have his port put in back in March, we both spread our business out around us and worked, him borrowing my notebook, glasses, and laptop because he wasn't planning to work until he saw me with all of my work things. It was classic Wyattness.)

It's really hard to focus on anything for very long because there is so much traffic in and out of this place. Dave has one of the longest chemo treatments, so we get here first thing in the morning when there are usually only 2 or 3 other people here, and we leave late in the afternoon, when the crowd has thinned out. That means I get to watch a group of people pass through in the morning and then be replaced by a new group in the afternoon. Some people bring a herd of people with them and some come completely alone. I'm not sure how that works. Maybe they don't get Benadryl with their chemo cocktail? Or maybe they have a ride coming later?

All these people make for good People Watching. I like to listen to their conversations and try to figure out who has cancer, what kind, how old they are, etc. And also, sometimes they are just funny.

There is one pair of older ladies, always dressed to the max with jewelry and shoes that put my t-shirt and flip flops to shame, that I've sat next to twice now. They come in the morning. The husband of one of the ladies has cancer and I'm convinced that one brings the other lady along for entertainment while she waits. Today, armed with new iPhones in pink Otterboxes, they were discussing whether or not they had the Timeline on Facebook, how to create notes on the iPhone for their grocery lists, and looking at a picture on Facebook of so-so's new wife whom no one knows is married. They left before lunch.

While they were here, another family of husband, wife and 2 grandchildren came in and sat beside us. The wife has cancer. The children were young, a boy around 5 years old and a girl about 12 months, she sort of walked but mostly crawled. And she tried to take Fancy Lady's phone and magazine. They also left before lunch.

After them, an older man sat down next to me with a lap desk, a Bible, and a stack of mail. He actually initiated a conversation with me because I'm wearing my Job 13:5 shirt today. (I almost never initiate conversation in waiting rooms because I'm socially awkward with strangers.) I found out that his stack of mail was actually tests from a prison correspondence course - a Bible study - that he and his wife help facilitate. His wife had cancer and they come back to Birmingham once a year for her follow up appointments. They live in Georgia now but they like these doctors. The wife grades the multiple choice part of the test, then the husband reads and comments on the discussion questions. Their daughter got her Master's degree in audiology at the University of Montevallo. He and his wife live near her now to take care of their grandkids while she works a few days a week. She actually called and asked them to move to Georgia to do that and they did. I told him I thought they are doing good work, both with the prison ministry and the grandkids. And it got me thinking, my introverted self could grade tests for Biblical correspondence courses...

Then as I was answering the question about Dave's profession, another man sat down with us and volunteered that his brother was a criminal defense attorney until he finished his 17th capitol murder trial and decided he needed to do something else. His wife has cancer, and he's still here waiting for her to finish her treatment.

There is another man here who had a visit from his son, daughter-in-law and baby granddaughter while he waits. I'm not sure who he's here with, but I presume it's his wife. He's still waiting, but the baby is gone.

There's a whole group of people on the other side of the room that I watch, but can't hear. I keep track of the young ones because there aren't many. Most of the people here are 40 or older. I keep track of who has lost their hair and who is in a wheelchair that wasn't last time. I wonder how often they have to come.

I really like it when there are little kids here because they liven the place up a little. But there aren't many kids because treatments take hours and there is nothing to do here but read 8 year old magazines and watch Judge Somebody loudly berate young idiots about their failure to use birth control (a point I agree with, though at a lower volume).

I check on Dave periodically but I can't stay with him because the treatment room is a large open space with lots of chairs separated by little walls so the patients can't see each other, and so they can pretend they don't hear each other. When I'm back there, I take note of the young ones as I scurry into his little space, trying not to invade the others' privacy and disliking the wide-open feeling of many sets of eyes on me as I walk through the door. I bring him snacks and lunch and try not to bug him if I think he might be sleeping. When he's finished, he comes out looking wholly normal without even a visible bandaid since his port is in his chest. Then we go home.

This is what Chemo Day looks like for me.

Babywearing Just Makes Life Easier

I've had conversations this week about babywearing with two different friends who have young babies. It took me back. I still wear Luke with some regularity, though that phase is coming to an end as fast as his babyhood. I wore him in the Spring during soccer games to keep him contained. I wear him at the grocery store if he's sleepy or anytime we are out if he falls asleep in the car. That's about all he will tolerate at this point because he is very busy. And he likes to "balk"  - that means "walk", if you don't speak Luke. He still likes the cuddliness of the Babyhawk, but he likes to "balk" more.

When they were tiny babies, I hated lugging the carseat everywhere. It takes up too much room and it was too heavy. When Ella was less than 6 weeks, I wore her in an Infantino sling. I wanted to love it, but I didn't. It didn't fit me right; then it got recalled because it didn't fit the babies right either. I stopped putting her in it at 6 weeks because she had to wear the Pavlik harness to correct her hip dysplasia. That's when I started working in earnest on learning to tie and put her into my homemade Moby-style wrap. I wore her everywhere in that thing until she was 6 months old. At that point, she was getting a little heavy for it and Dave gave me a Babyhawk mei tai for Christmas. I wore her everywhere in the Babyhawk until I was 5 months pregnant with Luke and it got uncomfortable to tie it around my belly (because we know how large I get when I'm gestating).

I didn't wear Luke in the Moby-style wrap as much because I learned how to put a newborn into the Babyhawk safely, and I just found that easier. However, I did resurrect the Moby-style wrap for his first beach trip. I bought 5 yards of chiffon off the clearance rack at the fabric store, tied it on, put him in it, and strolled into the ocean - baby contained safely on my body and able to play in the water. The chiffon was lightweight and dried super fast. It was perfect. I still keep my Babyhawk in the car so I always have it if there's a babywearing emergency (i.e. an energetic toddler in a crowd of people).

Here's my real-life list of reasons for wearing my kids.
1. Inconsolable crying - wearing and walking was often the only thing that made Ella stop crying.
2. To facilitate naps and bedtime. Sometimes I wore them just until they were asleep and sometimes I wore them for the entire nap.
3. While shopping.
4. Instead of holding - at events, church, parties, anywhere I would have been holding them or would have had them in the carseat or stroller.
5. On walks instead of pushing a stroller.
6. While cooking, cleaning, working.
7. To contain them in crowds or at the pool/beach.
8. To get through the witching hour - it's why I call it the Grouch Pouch.

I think that generally covers everything.

Since retiring the Infantino sling, I've stuck to alternative carriers (things you couldn't find at Target - though now they carry Moby!), because of the way the baby fits in them. I learned with Ella that it's much better for their hip development if the fabric of the carrier spreads their hips wide, as if they are sitting with their legs wrapped around your waist, rather than letting them dangle straight down, like some of the more mainstream carriers hold them. I also very much prefer a carrier that goes over both shoulders instead of a sling that just uses one shoulder. Double shoulder carriers are just more comfortable for me.  I love both my Moby-style wrap and my Babyhawk so much that they are of the few things I'll be keeping so I can wear my grandchildren one day.

My favorite resource for information and instructions for different types of carriers is The Babywearer. There's even a forum where you can swap or buy used carriers and ask questions. You can also find patterns for making your own carriers. It's a wealth of information.

For fun, I rounded up all the pictures I could find of my kids being worn. Sadly, I don't have one of Luke as a toddler in the pouch. I'll have to get one ASAP, before this phase is gone completely.

Luke, 6 months old, at Ladies' Night Out

Luke, 8ish months old, during the witching hour

Ella, 2.5 years, wearing her baby



Luke, 3ish months old, when he was fussy.

Ella, 4 months old, ready for a walk to the park.

Ella, probably 8 weeks old.

Ella, 6 months old, during Night In Bethlehem.

Ella, 14 months, in the museum at Ft. Morgan

Ella, 14 months, on top of Ft. Morgan

I made Aunt Becca a babywearing believer before she even knew there would be a Jake. This is her very first babywearing experience. She loved it. She wears Jake everywhere now.

Luke, 2 months, at Target.

Halfway There

Round three of chemo is over, I guess. He has energy and has already developed the week 2 side effects even though he didn't have the second crash first. That messes with my head. I was expecting the crash Monday or Tuesday of this week, even had meals lined up for those days, and it didn't come. So I'm calling round three finished.

This one hit him hard and fast but he recovered more quickly, too. I'm certain that's because he had no choice but to sleep in the two days following the treatment and that's what his body has been needing. I'm hoping he can arrange his schedule so that he has time to sleep like that for the next three rounds.

This round was hard on me. I haven't been about to lose my mind, but I'm feeling less like, "Let's do this thing" and more like "How am I going to make it through three more rounds?" He told me after the first round that he thought it might take all of his willpower to survive six rounds of chemo. I'm thinking it might take all of mine, too, and I'm not the one being poisoned every three weeks. We are living in a bizarre world right now.

I was laying in bed with Ella the last week and she kept asking me when we were going to eat at a certain restaurant. It was taking me forever to figure out which restaurant she was talking about and I asked her when we had been there before. She said, "You know, that day we walked around and passed out fingernail files." And I did know. She was talking about a restaurant we stopped in one day when we were handing out campaign literature for one of the local elections. It was Sunday, February 26, two days before I took Dave to the ER. It was all I could do not to lay in her bed and cry, thinking about how drastically our lives changed two days later. Not for the worse, but never to be the same again. Having a new normal thrust upon you without warning takes some getting used to. I occasionally find myself in situations like this one with Ella where old normal and new normal collide in my mind at the same time and I struggle to process everything that's happened since the end of February. Some days it's hard to believe it's been three months already and some days it's hard to believe it hasn't been three years.

I've come to realize that cancer has a time warp similar to the one that happens at the end of a pregnancy. All at once, time is flying and standing still. And, cancer is a line of demarkation in our lives together. Just like having kids. In the timeline of us, there are periods of time I think of as Before Kids and After Kids, and now I've added Before Cancer. There's no After yet because this isn't over. I'm not sure it will even be over at the end of chemo. I'm thinking there will be other time periods known as During Chemo and After Chemo, but I don't know when After Cancer will happen. Will there be another line of demarkation or will we just ease into it without realizing it until we're well on the other side? Now I'm rambling, but at least it's cathartic.

Anyway, three rounds down and three to go. With my whole body and soul I'm looking forward to this long weekend of playing in backyards with my family, to soaking up the sun and fun and laughter, to restocking my mental facilities in preparation for round four. And Lynyrd Skynyrd's Tuesday's Gone in my ears has mellowed me out just in time for the weekend. 

Around the House

More random quotes, from our house to yours!

"Iwanna baby geese! Iwanna baby geese!" - Luke's response to the goslings we saw in the office park one day when they came to have lunch with me. He was very excited about the babies. And very upset that we did not stop to kidnap one.

"Not today, devil. Git on outta here in the name of Jesus!" - Me, giving the devil my most Southern rebuke when our sign suddenly fell off the front door, scaring me and the dog.

Through the baby monitor in the middle of the night one night I heard, "Halp! Haaaalp!" - Luke was tied up in his frog blanket and could not get untangled.

"Does this wash my sins away?" - Ella, while dunking herself backward into the pool. It led to a great teaching moment where we explained the difference between making a decision to accept Jesus (that's the part that washes the sins away) and baptism (the public expression of that acceptance).

"... and they will start spelling 'eye patch' like i-P-a-t-c-h." - Dave, in conclusion to a rather lengthy dissertation on his vision of future iPhone technology. There was something about plugging it into the side of your head and having a display right in front of your eye, thus, the iPatch. He is now an iPhone user, but he didn't love it until I installed the I Heart Radio app for him.

"Iwanna bite." - Luke's counterargument whenever I tell him he has his own drink/snack and cannot have mine or that he has to wait until later to nurse. I believe it translates to, "Just a little?"

"Ungratulations, Mommy! I pooped!" - Ella, after a traumatic few days of not pooping. I'm adopting this one into my daily snarkasm. She meant "congratulations" of course, but given the situation and her perfect mispronunciation, I'm redefining it to mean the opposite (i.e. "You just found out all the work you did for three days was for nothing? Well, ungratulations."). You are welcome to use it, too, but remember, you heard it here first!

After taking a bite of chicken pot pie, Luke looked at me in confusion, removed it from his mouth, and said, "Pie?" Apparently he thought we were having chocolate pie for supper; after I clarified that it was chicken pie, he ate it.

"Mommy! It's SpongeBob Underpants!" - Ella, about a yellow starfish beach toy she found that has a face remarkably similar to Mr. Underpants. No, we don't watch SpongeBob, and yes, he will forever be known in our house as SpongeBob Underpants.