Category: Gelica

An Almost, Not Quite, Sort Of Normal Day

The baby is upstairs sleeping and seeing as he slept for a grand total of 10 minutes this morning as opposed to the hour he has been doing – I’m really REALLY hoping that he sleeps for a while….I’d love 2 hours to make up for the hour that he missed this morning, but even an hour would be AWESOME.

Josiah is quietly watching a movie while he snacks on his lunch.

Geli has actually gone to school. I was really nervous about that this morning, so I’ve done lots of praying for her. Her counts were just above the border of her being allowed to go to school and it’s so important that she believe that she “BELONGS” at school that we told her she needed to go. She is finally feeling better. The effects of the steroid have mostly worn off and aside from being tired because we’ve recently had a few too many late nights in a row…she’s doing pretty good.

My house is tidy and mostly clean, thanks to the help of an AMAZING woman.

I’m eating the MOST delicious oatmeal cookie and needing to write out a list of things that I absolutely MUST get done this week. That sounds all big and important, but really I need to write out a grocery list and a list of things that I can do to clean the house while holding the baby (in the sling)….ya know things like wiping the window sills or washing the windows, folding laundry….just easy stuff!

Okay back to those DELICIOUS cookies that I was talking about.

I had a craving for Oatmeal Cookies a while ago and while most Oats are “contaminated” (I dislike that word, it’s so “evil” sounding) with wheat, you can buy guaranteed gluten-free oats and so I did.

Oatmeal Cookies

I googled Gluten-Free Oatmeal Cookie Recipes and read through many MANY links and decided to go with this recipe. (If you read my last few posts, I google quite a bit, if you haven’t noticed. It’s how I come up with the “base” of most of my recipes and get patterns and most of my other useless information. HA!)

I used the All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour Mix from Gluten-free Girl and the Chef and then I started altering the recipe to suit me and my tastes. I only used 2 cups of old fashioned rolled oats and added in 1 cup of unsweetened coconut to make up the 3 cups. In place of the 1 cup of raisins, I substituted 1/2 a cup of cranberries and 1/2 a cup of these chocolate chips. I used Earth Balance Soy free Spread instead of the butter. I did use an egg because I put cranberries in them and that means and NO CHILD in my house will eat these because they have “raisin type food” in them. It was so very clever of me. I made the MOST DELICIOUS COOKIES and they are mine…..ALL MINE!

If my diet weren’t strict enough, I think that I’ve figured out which foods are bothering Judah and I believe……hopefully…..that he is now, actually, on a forward moving, positive trend. We’ve eliminated Gluten, Dairy and Soy….which basically leaves me with nothing left to eat. Okay, so that’s not true at all, but some days it feels like that and so I’ve consoled myself by having little treats like this around the house. I could totally make these cookies dairy, gluten, soy and egg free just by using Ener-G Egg Replacer, but for this batch, it wasn’t necessary – thanks to those pesky little cranberries. But, it’s worth giving up all those foods for my child’s health and if I’m being completely honest….I feel way better eating like this too. The soy is a bit difficult because I use it as flavor in my cooking and I LOVE miso soup, but I don’t believe that it will be gone forever….just until Judah is a bit healthier and his guts become a bit stronger.

Anyway, I made these one evening after the kids had all gone to bed and as soon as they came out of the oven, I tasted one and YUM!!!!! Then I sat down at the kitchen table and ate WAY TOO MANY. I dunked the warm cookies into a cold glass of Almond Milk! These are amazing and I’d serve these to anyone and they’d have no clue they were so altered.

These are not cookie substitutes….these are cookies…real, honest to goodness, chewy and crispy, delicious cookies.

If you have some food “issues”, these could be your next favorite cookie (if you like oatmeal cookies, that is) and if you don’t like raisins or cranberries…just increase the chocolate chips or the oatmeal or the coconut by half a cup.

Alright, I’m off to make my lists….

New Years Eve Update

Judah wanted to wish you all a Happy New Years Eve Day…..

DSC_0050

This year has been so full of both good and bad: and while we are SO ready to move beyond the bad….we are so thankful for the good. And, really, that’s life, isn’t it? You must take the good with the bad and move forward. Having said that, we are really looking forward to a New Year. And we are expecting GOOD THINGS, in this New Year. We are looking forward to what 2011 has in store for us as a family and as individuals. Are you?

I thought we could end the year with an update on how Geli and the family are doing and then I will start the New Year on a whole different note.

DSC_0054

This is a picture of Angelica on December 23rd. She is just trying to finish up one aspect of her sibling/cousin presents that she left until last minute, but I’m just excited that she was able to make her own gifts this year. Can you see her hair? At this point, she had some hair that was about 2-3 inches long. That was the hair that didn’t fall out at the beginning of the treatment. It was pretty sparse, but it was fairly long (for her) and it’s been growing since the head shaving party in July. The really exciting part was that under that sparse layer of hair there is a WHOLE TON of hair about 1 inch long that is coming in under all the long sparse stuff. It seemed like overnight she went from really thin hair to POOF….this whole “under” layer of hair that filled in all the holes. It was pretty cool. The not cool part…..she just went through a round of Chemo that is expected to make the hair fall out again.

We figured that seeing as her hair was expected to fall out within the next little bit, we might as well have some fun with it while it lasted.

DSC_0058

She chose a color that she’s used before. It’s a very cool Dark Blue/Black color. To look straight at her, it looks black; but when the light hits her the right way, it’s VERY blue.

You can see some of the blue-ish color in this next photo.

DSC_0059

It was kinda fun to do something that was out of the ordinary and something that we would have done before she was diagnosed. She had very funky hair for Christmas. Right after Christmas, like on Boxing Day, we noticed that her hair was starting to fall out. There was TONS of blue/black hair in her bed, on her clothes, on the couch, on the baby, on me…pretty much everywhere.

I will probably be shaving my hair in the next few days. I waffle between wishing I wasn’t going to and not really caring because it’s just hair and being thankful because my hair’s at an awkward length right now where I have to do it everyday or else I look like a massive Q-Tip….it’s cute (or not). And, I realize that all of those thoughts to some degree of less must go through her head as well, and that’s part of the reason why I would join her in this way.

DSC_0015

This is a picture of Geli from this morning. I’m not sure if you can tell, but her hair has thinned out quite a bit. At this point, it looks like all of the “original” hair has fallen out and some of the new hair seems to be falling out as well. We’re not sure exactly how much will stay, but really….it’s just hair. And, it’ll grow again and then when she repeats this phase again…she’ll lose it again and then…..then it can really start coming back.

Geli’s been spending a lot of time laying on our couch over the past week. We’ve managed to avoid the hospital and we are SO excited about that. I’m a bit worn out by stress because on Boxing Day, Angelica woke up barfing and barfing and barfing and barfing and we really weren’t sure what was going on. Apparently either a bit of food poisoning or some wicked virus hit a few of my family, because my mom, both sisters, a sister-in-law, Geli and myself (to a very small degree) had some serious gastro-intestinal issues. Geli had a few nasty days and I wasn’t really sure what was going on. She had no fever, but was really not doing well. We weren’t sure what her counts were doing and were unsure if she’d be strong enough to fight off whatever was attacking her. Unfortunately, all of this also coincided with her finishing up the fist half of the current phase of Chemo that she is on. One of the side effects of the steroid that she was taking is wicked joint and bone pain. She has really been in pain over the past 2 days, in fact, she was in tears yesterday and needed some codeine to take the edge off.

She is really dealing with all of this as well as can possibly be expected, but all of this is not easy.

She has a break, and doesn’t start the second half of this phase until January 11th. We are hoping and praying that she really gets to enjoy this next week and a half; and that her counts recover as they are quite low….not decimated, but quite low.

We are going to be missing attending our annual Family New Years Party because her counts are too low to justify throwing her into the middle of 50+ people in one house. So, we are all feeling pretty bummed about that but I think it’s hardest for the kids because as adults, we can comprehend that it’s only one year and that it’s for a really good reason, but the kids…well, they just see it at one more thing that we are missing out on. We are trying to come up with something fun, exciting and yet low key to be able to do with the kids to celebrate.

We may just celebrate by actually staying up until midnight and banging pots and pans….yesterday, Angelica actually asked what the deal with New Years was about. See, typically we’ve just put out kids to bed and then gone to bed ourselves, well before midnight and then celebrated New Years with our extended family on New Years Day. So, they have no idea about New Years Eve celebrations…..maybe that just might be what we’ll do this year…..if I can make it up until midnight. Or maybe not……we’ll see.

How are are planning on celebrating the New Year?

Giving

Christmas is over and was amazing. We are terribly over tired, but managed to do what we needed to do on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and now today is for recuperating……for some of us – quite literally.

Geli woke up this morning barfing. I’m not sure what the deal is, but there is no fever and so we are just hoping that whatever it is passes quickly. She is feeling a bit better than this morning as so……we carry on.

I had these great ideas that I’d post regularly over the past week or two and yet, when it all came down to it – there was JUST. NO. TIME.

I chose to be as wise as possible and to work within my limits and I’ve managed to not only make it through the Christmas chaos, but I’m not completely stressed out (well, not any more than what seems to be “normalish” for right now) and I have a whole ‘nuther week to relax before the kids all head back into the school madness.

So, if I can, I’d like to share what some of our handmade Christmas gifts were this year. I have a few other things to say and I’ll probably throw them in around some of the fun things that we did or are doing and it should be quite a party over here.

Last year we had our first “handmade Christmas”. The kids (my kids) were responsible to make gifts to give to each other. I wasn’t opposed to helping them to buy or get material to make their gifts for each other as long as it was inexpensive and was something that they could mostly do on their own. It was SO MUCH FUN that we’ve decided to carry on with this tradition. This year I made an effort to try to use materials for the projects that we already had on hand. We did end up spending some, but very little for the 30+ gifts (in total) that the kids ended up making for their siblings and their cousins. This year, we started making the gifts earlier than last year, but even then we ended up leaving things to the last minute. I think that I’m gonna try to get the show rolling a little earlier this next year and try to have things finished by the 1st of December. It’s always good to have goals, isn’t it? Anyway………

Xani's Quilt

Xani’s Quilt

Angelica was given a quilt back when she was diagnosed with Leukemia and its the kind of thing that she can have here at home and then take to the hospital and then it’s the same and has the reassuring qualities of “home” and “comfort” regardless of where she is. Xani has ooh’ed and aaaah’ed all over Geli’s quilt and I mentioned that in the new year, we could think about making one for her.

Well, Angelica really wanted to make a quilt for Xandra for Christmas and so she did.

She had a bit of help from her Nana Karen and from her Momma, but she made this quilt for her sister.

The Front

We used bits and pieces of material that we had on hand (oh, except I did buy one piece of fabric on sale for $1.99 per meter), an older blanket for the inside filler and an old sheet for the bottom piece. We had everything to make this gift on hand except for the $1.99 purchase.

The Back

Xani had mentioned that she really wanted a purple and yellow quilt and Angelica made it happen. The biggest frustration with this project was that Geli left it a little too late and we were rushing to get it done before the kids finished school as it would have been difficult to work on it while they were home.

Geli spent ages working on the pattern she wanted to do and trying to make the fabric that we did have to fit within what she envisioned and she did it. It’s really pretty. It’s not a HUGE quilt, but perfect to snuggle up with, on the couch or on your bed and the best thing……Xani LOVES IT!!!

She was so happy on Christmas Day when she opened it.

Truth be told, she did download a bunch of photo’s from my camera and these pictures happened to be on there and she did see it in advance. Regardless, she hadn’t got a really good look and compared to what she thought she’d seen…..the real gift was a lot better.

Geli had so much fun making and giving this gift and Xani got so much pleasure from receiving it and so this handmade gift was a GREAT success.

In fact, Angelica had so much fun making this quilt that she whipped up two more smaller quilted blankets for her two baby cousins. We were in such a hurry to get them finished and wrapped that I never even got any pictures of them, but they were really, REALLY cute. You’ll just have to take my word on it. She used a bunch of the fabrics from the stuff that I used to make Judah’s quilt back in the spring…..

Fabric Pile

They turned out really well, and again….she just used material that we already had on hand.

It was a great distraction for Geli in the middle of some down days. We did have some obstacles to overcome and the whole process would have probably gone a bit quicker, if my machine hadn’t broken in the middle of our sewing frenzy, but a HUGE thanks to Aunty Linda for letting us borrow hers. We are so thankful.

I love that we were able to thin out my fabric stash, to not spend money (well, not very much) and to make AWESOME presents to give away.

I especially loved just how excited Angelica was to be making these gifts and how excited she was to give them away. I want to teach my kids to be thoughtful to others….to give gifts that they’ve given of themselves into and that they believe the other person will appreciate or will have meaning to them. I think that we are on that track.

Christmas is Coming & other updates…

Well, the baby is playing on the floor, the boys are watching Despicable Me; and the girls (and Jon) are in town to get Geli’s third dose of chemo for this round.

We went and got her blood work done yesterday and her numbers are quite low. Not “freaky scary hole up in the house for a week or two” low, but “avoid mostly everyone and stick to just family members” low. We should hit the “wrap her in Purell coated bubble wrap” low by New Years Day; and really, we are praying to avoid any trips to Children’s between today and January 11th…which is the next scheduled chemo dose. If you are the praying type, we’ve love some prayer that she (and we) stay healthy and protected between now and then. We are really looking forward to some nice quiet, calm peaceful days and nights between now and then.

When Angelica went for her 2nd dose of chemo last Thursday her white blood count was on the extreme high end of normal. This was a bit unnerving for us as the last time they were anywhere close to high was when we found out that she had Leukemia, BUT….this time, it was only an indicator that she had a virus and that she was fighting it off. This was FABULOUS news because her body is trying so hard to do what it was created to do and in the middle of all of this assault of her body – that is wonderful.

She successfully fought off that virus (after it tried quite ridiculously hard to kick her butt – she did have a rough couple of days and we weren’t sure if it was the chemo or the virus or both) and only has the slightest bit of a cough right now. The rest of us are steadily taking our vitamins, avoiding the throngs of people out there and trying to do everything that we can to boost our immune systems so that we don’t get anything, and so far it seems to be working.

With everyday that passes uneventfully, I can feel my family starting to breath a bit deeper, starting to relax, starting to act less strung out and this is such a good thing. Josiah is starting to go to bed more calmly (he was screaming hysterically for more than half an hour at bedtime regardless of what we did to encourage, console or help him to sleep) and he’s actually been sleeping through the nights (as opposed to waking every hour or 2). The not sleeping was just making EVERYTHING worse and so to have that not be as HUGE of an issue is so nice.

We are hopefully working through the issues with Judah. <>

We’ve not seen a lot of blood in his poop recently and so we are hoping that things for him are on the upswing. We’ve gone from 15+ bloody diarrhea diapers in a day to about 4 or 5 more normal-ish looking jobs. He’s throwing up WAY less and seems less like he’s in pain and is waking less in the night.

It might take some time for his intestinal tract to heal but I believe that he’s on the mend. I still feel quite a bit of stress about him, but it’s less now that he seems to be getting better as opposed to getting worse.

I feel like we are definitely headed in a more relaxed, peaceful direction, and yet I feel a bit like I’m holding my breath. I would desperately love for things to carry on as they are and for nothing to upset this delicate balance that we’ve got going on. It’s a reality that I have to be prepared for that Angelica could end up in the hospital between now and the New Year. It’s not a certainty, nor is it even “likely” but I cannot ignorantly walk around with my head in the clouds thinking that nothing like that could possibly happen to our family. For who I am, I need to at least be a little bit “prepared” that it might happen and then I can be ever so pleasantly delighted when it does not happen (positive speaking, right?). Having that thought in the back of my head, does bring it’s own level of stress and I hate that. I hate that I feel like an elastic that is wound too tight, but as long as I can hold steady everything is okay. If there is one more twist, then I might snap.

I don’t actually believe that I’ll snap, but to have things go chaotic again seems like it would very much upset this fragile balancing act that I’ve got going on. I do feel a bit more grounded with every day that passes, but I still feel like I’m trying to get back to a position of strength, not like I’m working or operating from that position of strength.

Being that kind of person that I am……it sucks to be in this place.

Other than my stress level – things are carrying on as usual. We are almost ready for Christmas. Siah is SO excited. I forgot how much fun it is to have a 3 year old for Christmas. I think 3 is the perfect age. He can’t wait for Christmas to come and his Holiday Cheer is so infectious.

DSC_0084

We are doing well, over all, and I am so thankful that we are all together as a family this Christmas and that Geli’s prognosis is so good. We are looking forward to 2011 being an amazing year.

The Ups and Downs

It’s been a bit of a rough weekend, which spilled over into the start of a rough week and really – I’m still feeling a bit shaky, but I’m hoping that I can pull it together and climb up and out of the funk that I was/am in.

Judah had a pretty rough weekend health-wise and where he had seemed like he was getting better – he seemed to be even worse and it scared and stressed me out. He was grouchy and upset and wanted to be held. 25lbs of dead weight is a bit much to carry around 18 hours of the day especially when you’re trying to clean and cook and herd children and carry on with the daily grind of it all.

As a result, I was one seriously stressed out ball of massive hurt…..I still hurt. My back, shoulders and neck have not recovered from 2 days of that, and they involuntarily recoil when I reach to take him from Jon or one of the girls. It’s not been fun!

Geli’s been feeling “off”. She has been having some nasty headaches – which I can totally relate too – and her emotions are right on edge. She has one more day “on” the steroid and then a week off followed by one more week on and then we have a 3 month break from the steroids. So far, her sugar levels have been totally perfect and we’re praying that they stay that way.

Between stressing about Judah’s health and Geli’s whole situation, and throwing in me feeling so useless and inadequate……I just had the worst weekend. Any one thing, is way too much stress for us to handle, but everything together is overwhelming. And I hate feeling like I’m not accomplishing things.

I hate that my baby is having stomach problems. By the way, my dr thinks that he picked up a bug and that he is on the upswing, and just ended up with a virus, which only makes things seem worse, when they are in fact, getting better. I should know in a day or two, if this is the case, but the whole situation feels very wearing on me.

And, for whatever reason, he just woke up….and so with that – I’m done for the night.

Delayed Intensification 1

So yesterday was the start of Delayed Intensification 1. This is the 4th out of 7 stages of Chemotherapy for Angelica. And….this is the stage where we finally hit the half way mark of this first intensive (almost) year of chemotherapy. That should happen in about 2 weeks-ish.

She had a fairly good day of treatment yesterday. She got some chemo injected into her spinal fluid (lumbar puncture), then 2 different chemo meds intravenously, they hung around for an hour after the LP (its required), they picked up the steroids that shes on during this stage and then they headed home. One of these meds can make her feel a little sick (and it did) and so we drugged her up and she basically hung out on the couch for the rest of the day and then went to bed early.

This round shouldn’t be a horrific round and yet there are a few side effects that are possibilities and that we are really hoping that she doesn’t get. The steroids are the worst offenders in this round and can cause problems with her sugar levels which might send her back into a diabetic state. They can cause severe joint and bone pain which can be bad enough to require hospitalization with morphine. They can cause her to have insomnia. They can cause severe mood swings. Really, it’s not pretty or fun.

The first half of this round is actually a shortened version of the very first round that Geli was on. It’s 3 weeks of treatment as opposed to the 4 weeks that she did. One difference is that the steroid is a stronger steroid BUT…she takes it one week off, one week on, and then one week off again.

Some of the effects are cumulative, which mean that IF she ends up with those side effects that she could be feeling the worst of it at Christmas. This would suck, and so we are asking for prayer that Angelica would remain strong and healthy and that the nasty side effects would not bother her.

We want….
NO sugar issues
NO joint pain
NO sleep issues
NO mood swings
NO nausea
NO illness or sickness

and for the chemo to do it’s job and nothing more.

Thanks so much for all your support and prayers. We appreciate you so much.

MMMmmmmmm

Things have been busy over here in so many different areas.

I keep thinking that I’ll have a moment to update what going on and instead I’ve ended up with a backlog of things to write about and new things just keep on happening. That’s life isn’t it? It just keeps moving forward at a steady, predictable rate; even if you desperately want it to slow down and especially if you want it to speed up.

Homemade Oreo Cookies

In case things weren’t already crazy enough, I’ve recently needed to remove gluten from my diet. I mentioned a while ago that Judah was having some gastro-intestinal issues. Removing dairy seemed to help a little and yet it really didn’t help like I thought it would. When I went to the doctor, it seems that his issues are dairy, gluten and yeast related and we are trying to figure out if this is a short term deal or a much more serious situation.

It’s been just over a week since I removed the gluten and while things are not great, they do seem to be a little bit better. Judah seems to be in less pain and that’s a huge deal for me.

I found this recipe for gluten-free Oreo cookies and figured that I’d attempt to alter it to make it dairy-free and egg-free. I baked up a batch tonight and it’s amazing.

Jon figures that they are good enough that you’d never know that they were dairy, egg and gluten-free. They are sooooo yummy and I know the kids are going to flip when they wake up in the morning.

Angelica is starting the 4th stage of the chemotherapy tomorrow morning. She went and got blood work done this morning and when her counts came back this afternoon….they were FABULOUS!

We were hoping that they would be high for the start of this round and they are, especially compared to how low they were last week. They are low for normal, but high for Geli.

Xani has been quite sick over the past week. It was almost like the flu but with no barfing or fever…….she’s had a headache, sore muscles, an all over achy feeling, runny nose, cough, and I think that she’s finally, slowly, on the mend.

Jeremy turned 10 years old yesterday and I’ve got a bunch of stuff to update on him.

Siah has not been sleeping very well and as a result, he’s been a bit of a goofball during the day. Lots of tears and whining and fussing and moaning and screaming….it’s a bit wearing. And I’d love to say that I have some great ideas and plans of what to do with him to work through this rough patch, but….ya…..nope! Nothing! I’m not sure if I’m too tired to come up with something or maybe I need to be just a little bit tired before “it” comes to me. I dunno, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out or maybe he’ll grow out of it all before I have to come up with something.

Christmas is coming and I’ve been baking (gluten-free, of course) and we’re trying to get things ready so that things will be peaceful and calm. I can at least hope for peace and calm, right?

I’m hoping to find a few moments to be able to get a few things caught up on here (and in real life). Should we take bets on whether it will actually happen or not????

Ah well. Life keeps moving along and I keep on moving with it, whether I like it or not.

A Week Off

So, all of Jon’s talk about Geli starting Chemo tomorrow. HAH!

We got her bloodwork done at the lab out here by our house and found out this afternoon that her counts…….LOOOOOOOW!

Like Really low…Like Crazy low….

Like Postponing Chemo for a week low.

Oh well, it means that she has another week to relax and heal and recuperate and that’s okay.

And….it gives us from December 23rd all the way past New Years off – with no chemo. So that’s a bonus, eh?

We’re praying that her counts come up quite significantly over this next week and that she’ll have an amazing week at home, with no infections of any kind.

I should have some more exciting things to post about tomorrow, but right now….(9pm) I’m going to bed…I’m really tired. Like really, REALLY tired. Like I could sleep for a week tired. Heck, probably a month tired. and yet…..if I’m really lucky, the baby will sleep ’till 2 or 3am. More likely, I’m looking at a midnight wake up call. Oh well.

Night All…see ya on the flip side.

Creating Saturday’s

Geli actually cleared her Methotrexate from her system by the 48 hour blood draw but had to stay until hour 56 to get the last “rescue” medicine….

This means that she cleared the chemo from her system (down to below the acceptable level) within 24 hours. AMAZING!

Technically, she was allowed to leave the hospital after the last dose of her rescue med…..which needed to be given at 11:00pm on Sunday night. There was a lot of excitement about possibly being able to go home and sleep in their own beds, and some concern that it might be too late at night and might just cause more upset and stress (on Geli) to try and rush and leave in the middle of the night. In the end, the call of their own beds won out and they chose to leave at 11:30pm.

Jon’s parents – ever so wonderfully – picked Jon and Geli up from the hospital at 11:30pm and drove them home. It was so nice to have them home, even if it was just a few hours earlier than planned, and even nicer to not have to drive into town. Especially with that 8-10 car pile up on HWY 1 this morning. YIKES!

DSC_0041

Kicking the Fall Leaves

Jon and I and the kids got up a little late and were quite slow this morning. Geli slept in. Xani and Jer were already to go to school….breakfast eaten, clothes on, back packs packed, lunches in backpacks, even shoes on….and then Xani melted down. I’m not sure what the exact problem is/was…whether she was overtired. No one seems to sleep well when Geli’s in the hospital. Or if she just really missed Jon and Geli…well, to be honest, I have no idea what the real problem is/was and at this point I’m not really interested in delving too deeply.

I was a bit surprised that she was upset and crying, even though I shouldn’t have been.

Jon took Jeremy to school. I sent Xani upstairs to sleep, and when I went up 10 minutes later – she was snoring loudly. Obviously needing some extra sleep. Within an hour, Jeremy was calling from school crying about not feeling well and needing to come home and so Jon went to get him.

By this point, I just figured that we were going to have the “Saturday” that we didn’t get to have. We’d do what we needed to. Hang out. Have a slow, down day TOGETHER and then get the kids off to bed at an early time and start fresh on Tuesday. We’d just skip Monday, cause who really likes Mondays anyway, eh?

Just before Jon got home with Jeremy – who was fine….just needing some family time – Geli woke up and was feeling really REALLY good, comparatively.

We had a great day and even were able to think through some of the kids Christmas presents to each other and to their cousins. Our goal is to get everything done by the first week of December and then to be able to relax…….

HA HA HA HA HA HA! Relax! Okay, maybe I’ll just say…….. to be able to cross one thing (Christmas presents) off my list.

By now, it should come to no surprise to me that right now, in this tage of our lives, our family really needs to be with each other after a weekend away. I, in my adult thinking, know that they are only gone for just a few days and that Angelica’s not going in to the hospital “sick” and even with my knowledge and maturity *snort*….. I know how much “I” look forward to them being home and having some time “together”. And yet I’ve kind of just expected the kids to just keep trooping on as if everything is status quo.

I still think that anything that we can do “as normal” is a good thing, but that I need to be more prepared for when the kids indicate (through words, actions, or emotions) that they need a “family” day. It wasn’t a problem to keep them home and I think that it was right to send Jeremy until he asked to come home…..I just hadn’t thought through the possibility of them needing us to be together. “Together” was exactly what we needed.

Fortunately, this is her last “scheduled” hospital stay and for that, we breathe a sigh of relief and thankfulness.

It was a nice day. One that could have been better had I just thought through the different possibilities a little more……

This “whole thinking things through clearly” is really frustrating me right now…..but hey, today was an awesome Saturday!