State of the state of the... things?

 Two more chemos to go!

For those of you who have asked how to pray for me, thank you. Um, if you know of any magical means of chemo not stripping nasal passages and eyeballs of moisture, could you send them my way? I'm not getting nosebleeds, but they are CLOSE. Using more eyedrops than I expected too... other than that, my appetite is great and energy is so much better and all the things seem pretty good so keep 'em coming! Dada even had to give me my first hair trim because Thing One announced I had a good monk look going on but not much going on up top. Great. That's the spring look I was aspiring for. Sheesh.

However, extended family members of ours could absolutely use every well wish and prayer you could offer for their young family whose sweet baby was born with his cord around his neck. He hung on long enough to be loved on and cherished, then passed on after some time in hospice care. My heart hurts for his first time parents and his loving extended family who couldn't wait to meet him. There just aren't words. It's like in "Forrest Gump" when he says, "sometimes there just aren't enough rocks." Sending so much love and hope, you guys. You are so loved.

Life just keeps going, ready or not. We are finally getting some sunshine which is MUCH appreciated, though most of us Ohioans realize this is "false spring" and even though I was thrilled to see a killdeer this week, I also have seen them looking completely disgruntled as they stand around in the snow of previous years like, "I TOLD you we should have waited another week in Albuquerque!" The redwinged blackbirds have also been trilling and that makes me happy.

There's no school tomorrow for conferences and/or professional development, so it's a long weekend for us. This week had been spring break for Thing Two so I'm not sure if he's made it out of his robe at all this week...

Enjoy that sunshine and take really good care of you!

A clean butt story, I promise

Maybe I watch too much NCIS, for I may be turning into Ducky who has a story for everything. "This poor robe reminds me..."

I mentioned to Liam this morning that he's had this robe for about a year, and that I'm pretty sure it was intact in the pictures here on the blog from last March 9 when he and Damon were having a picnic on the deck. I lamented the sad, sorry state of his robe today, telling him that his bony butt ruined it.

"Ha, Bony Behind- Bane of Clothes. Sounds like a SkyRim boss," is what he quips to me. I'd been teasing him lately, calling him Wind in His Hair like in Dances With Wolves, but I think I prefer Bony Behind- Bane of Clothes...

The story I thought of was from my third summer working at camp, so we're talking 1996. We had some wonderful summer staff from the Czech Republic, one of whom was named Henry. We had a fairly large staff that year- I'm guessing around thirty; we had a lot of those plastic inboxes stacked up inside the dining hall so we could leave each other maintenance requests, encouraging notes, candies, what have you. The staff lounge was in the basement of the dining hall so that a rotating handful of counselors could do morning devotions with the campers upstairs while the rest of us met downstairs for a staff meeting.

We're (mostly) all downstairs, waiting for any stragglers, when we hear a crash from upstairs. Several minutes later, Henry comes in sheepishly and laments, "I had a small accident with the mailboxes."

Bless his heart, he'd knocked some over and was trying, with his English as a second language, to read enough of the notes which spilled out to kingdom come to return them to their proper re-righted mailboxes, guessing where the candies went, and so forth. Poor, sweet guy was so contrite but the confession was so adorable in his accent that we've used that as a code phrase for small disasters ever since. (Henry, wherever you are now, I wish I could give you a huge squeeze and let you know how much we miss and love you! Sorry for throwing you under the bus.)

Hence, Liam has had a small accident with his robe.

It was no match for Bony Behind- Bane of Clothes. 

 

Breakfast, the most important meal of the day

I'd like to say that Liam takes breakfast seriously, but if you've ever been in the tri-state area when he's supposed to be eating breakfast, you'd more often hear my voice reminding him to eat than you'd actually hear him chewing. I suppose I should be grateful as I hate hearing the sound of chewing. Licking is even worse. 

Anyway, Liam does however take the making of breakfast very seriously. He loves weekends so he can putter about in his robe (and sometimes hairnet, of his own volition, don't ask) and whip up pancakes and French toast and his favorite meat, bacon. An added bonus is that PaPa gave us his old griddle; you'd have thought we'd handed Liam the moon. 

                                          

At least we know that once he's out into the real world he won't starve to death when there are breakfast ingredients at hand. Dinner is a different story, but one thing at a time. 

First day of school #8, I think

Okay, we've been here before. I believe this was Carrie's 8th first day of school, and every one of them has run something like this:

"Finding Nemo" clip

She gets so excited that she has a hard time sleeping. Her stomach fills with butterflies and her heart longs to be out of the house and back with her friends. So this is one happy chick:

 

First day of seventh grade already. Wow. We've had her forever.

 

Yes, she made the decorations on her shirt herself.

 

This is what "grin and bear it" looks like from Carrie, what "suck it in" looks like from Damon, and what pure excitement looks like from Liam. This is the first year he's ever been excited about going to school. I blame believe it had something to do with the excellent and fast open house we experienced the night before school began.

 

Grandmama was here to kick off the school year!

 

Look at these cute boys! Liam is brimming over. And then there's Bebeeeee... robe and all. He didn't start on Tuesday. His first day is Wednesday, but his open house was Tuesday. Kindergarten tends to be chaotic.

 

Here it comes! The bus, not the beans.

 

And there he goes. Big kids off to a great start!

 

"Bring me another mai tai!"

 

#begone

 

Just kidding...