Angelica’s counts came back too low and she’s scored herself some blood. So, her and Jon are in for a LONG and boring day at the hospital today.
I have more to update on how Geli is doing and what’s up in our world, but time is tight right now…so, I’ll just send you over to RED HANDED PHOTOGRAPHY to see the Family Photo‘s that Tania took of us a few weeks ago.
They are AMAZING!
Tania, BABE!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!
We are so blessed to have such amazing people in our lives.
Jon just posted a status on Facebook that said something about Geli heading into the hospital for her second dose of chemo and the other kids having today off school (it’s a Professional Day) and then he said something about us all going into town together “for the fun of it”.
Which, if you’ve ever taken 5 kids ranging from 14 to >1 anywhere, you know that the “fun” that is spoken of is less “fun” and more “stressful” than anything.
I guess if you are going anywhere, Children’s Hospital is a good place to go, in case anything goes wrong or…you know, for kids to be able to just be kids?
Not that I’m expecting anything to go wrong, but wrangling children is almost as fun as I’ve heard wrangling sheep is, and if it weren’t for the fact that we need to get passports in order to be able to even apply for Geli’s Wish, then we’d be staying home today.
In the Wish package, we were given a coupon for Blacks to get Passport photo’s taken and the closest (or most convenient to us) Blacks Photography is……..in Metrotown. Sweet!
So, we wake up this morning and prepare for chemo and pictures….how fun!
We’ll be hitting the hospital first and hopefully we’ll be in and out of there within an hour. We do have to wait for Geli to get a blood count so that we know if she needs a transfusion or not, but I’m not guessing that it’s necessary. It usually isn’t after only the first week of chemo….but as every week goes by, the likelihood of her counts going too low increases…..the actual chemo doses should only take less then 10 minutes…it’s the waiting…..oh the joys of waiting…….
And so today…..we head in and I’m really hoping that it’s more fun than it should be!
This is what has been happening at our house, last night and this morning…
We had a great family get together yesterday afternoon and then Xani started barfing. Between last night and this morning she barfed 7 times….and we won’t event talk about what else was going on “behind the scenes” if you know what I mean….This morning she woke up with a fever…..this is so frustrating.
We moved Xani’s mattress into the TV room mostly to keep her and Geli separated. We are desperately hoping and praying that this “whatever it is” will skip Geli.
Over the weekend, Geli had a reaction to a bandaid and we think it’s a combination of the adhesive and the one chemo drug that she’s getting. Something similar happened once before. She has a bunch of blisters on her arm around where they drew blood on Wednesday and it hurts really bad. We have been applying Polysporin and praying that it just goes away and doesn’t cause any big problems. Her counts are high enough that we are hoping that she will be able to fight it off herself.
She did throw up her breakfast this morning though which scored her the right to stay at home today. And seeing as she is fine other than that barf…..I’m saying that it’s chemo related and not sickness related….at least it seems that way.
Jeremy also woke up this morning with his own “behind the scenes” action and he’s been alternately laying on the couch and laying in the bath this morning…..really not feeling very well at all. He keeps threatening to barf and we have a bowl close by, just in case.
There is a lot of soup and weak peppermint tea being handed out and we are praying that whatever this is….that it just stops now.
I was SO looking forward to everyone going back to school and Jon and I being able to relax on his one day off and nope…….so I’m pouting and whining a bit. I’ll be ok, but I’ve had enough of vomiting and diarrhea to last me a life time….
While I’m cleaning up vomit and other behind the scene messes…..do you have any humorous life stories to share with me? I’d love to hear from you….and I could really use the laugh today!
Well, we are 15 days (2+ weeks) into Delayed Intensification 2 which is 56 days long (8 weeks). This is the second to last stage before Maintenance. So far, Geli has had a Lumbar Puncture, one dose of Intrathecal Methotrexate (into her spinal fluid), one dose of Peg L-asparaginase divided into two shots (one in each thigh). She has had two doses of Vincristine and 2 doses of Methotrexate (both of those into her port in her chest).
She has been doing pretty well. There have been some down times, some barfy feeling moments, and a lot of great moments. Some times the chemo makes food and water taste “off” and that sucks. Sometimes, it’s difficult to sleep and yet regardless of how much sleep Geli does get, she feels overly tired most of the time.
Her body is working overtime to heal and process the poison injected into it and she’s fighting so hard and most definitely winning this race.
Geli has been at school all last week, except for Thursday when she had to go in for her last chemo dose. She has no chemo this week and we are planning for another great week at school.
As her parents, we are thrilled to see her attending school, hanging out with her friends, just being as normal as is possible in this crazy situation.
She is working hard on her grade 8 school work and while she’s not done as much work as is required from her school mates, she’s done really well on keeping up to date with the essential assignments that her teachers have given to her.
Angelica and a friend scored a perfect mark on an oral presentation that they have been working on over the past month or so. That was definitely a bright spot over this last week.
We’ve been out walking most days and the exercise and fresh air are wonderful. You don’t realize how much you take your health for granted until you spend a huge portion of a year not feeling well and laying on a couch and then you realize that even a simple walk requires almost more effort than you have to give. BUT….summer’s coming and swimming is important 
enough that we are trying to build up strength so that we will be able to swim without needing a life jacket or having to rest after 5 mins.
We are really, REALLY looking forward to summer. Angelica will be on Maintenance and we will be defining a new normal and this summer will be a most welcome break from this past year. I think that we are all looking forward to a bit of a relaxing summer.
I’ve been trying desperately to stay on top of the house and have been running at warp speed from morning till night and unfortunately most of the night too (thank you very much children). I’ve had almost no down time and I’m desperate for summer with no homework, a bit more of a relaxed schedule, once a month visits into the hospital, no deadlines……I can’t wait.
We have managed to turn our house up side down and I think its a good thing, BUT…..it’s not without it’s challenges. We did move our bedroom down to the basement along with the two little boys. Geli and Xani are up in what was the master bedroom. Jeremy is still is his room and we’ve moved the “TV/Rec Room” up to the big room that used to be Siah’s. I will try to get pictures soon, but so far this particular room arrangement is working well.
Xani is still struggling pretty hard and it’s difficult to watch her struggle and hurt.
Jeremy is rocking his Lego Root Camp and just being Jeremy. Recently, we tweaked the meds that he’s taking and it’s made a great difference.
Josiah is 3 years old and while the whiny voice and testing of behavior is not the most fun….he’s doing really well. I believe that he’s settled greatly from the initial chaos and while there are still things that we can and will work on with him….he’s doing SO much better. We’ve been trying to color a bit and he’s loves to spend one on one time with anyone. He stresses a bit about not knowing “how” to color and wants to have one of us color “with” him by putting our hand over his, but we keep practicing and he’s getting a bit more confident that he “can” color all by himself.
Judah is getting so big and I can hardly believe that 8 months have past us by. While I’m still not eating wheat (he seemed to have some gluten issues), soy or dairy….the intestinal issues that Judah was dealing with seem to have settled and he is doing much better. I have never really had a baby who has eating issues and yet, Judah is giving me a run for my money.
He will eat rice puffs or rice cakes or potato puffs any time any where, but try to give him some thing that might actually have taste or nutritional value in it and he clamps his lips and crosses his arms in front of his face and uses his arms in a windshield wiping motion to knock the spoon out of your hand.
I’ve tried to see if he will feed himself and it’s very hit and miss and so I’m not stressing about it too much because I don’t want to “create” a HUGE issue. He’ll eat when he eats and seriously…..it’s not like he’s wasting away, eh? He’s quite the chunk!
He has the sweetest personality and is so happy and squish-able and lovable and we are just so thrilled he is ours. (I just wish he’d sleep a little more consistently – he can….it’s just very hit and miss and I think that more sleep would make this whole situation just a little easier to handle.)
All said, we are doing okay! I wouldn’t say that things are the MOST AMAZING EVER, but we are surviving. One day at a time, we are making it through this…….A lot of that is due to you and your prayers, encouragement, love and support……we are so thankful to you all.
I can”t believe that it’s already March 6th.
Happy Birthday, Jack Man!
My nephew is 1 year old today. How cool is that?
It’s hard to believe that it was a year ago that my sisters and I were pregnant together and we had no idea what was on our horizon.
I had the cousins over to my house the week before last. We had Michelle’s 3 kids and Debbie dropped off Jack and between us all, there were 9 kids in the house….3 under a year. It was wonderful chaos.
Then my sisters left and Jon and I were left alone with ‘ALL THOSE KIDS”.
It’s really not that bad because the older 5 kids are all 10 and older and so it’s not like they require intense supervision….just a holler out here and there. There’s Josiah and the babies to watch and as long as the gate is up….we’re golden. They just crawl around on the main level and play with all the toys. If I occasionally throw them some food bits, then they are more than happy.
I tried to get a picture of the three of the little boys and well……I wasn’t as successful as I had hoped to be.
I think this next one was the best of the bunch and it’s not that great….
Being the oldest and the most responsible, Jack’s just had to do a quick butt check and he was happy to report that all was clear. That smell must have just been some gas or something, but Judah totally blamed it on Zach…
The girls had been helping to distract the babies and then they left…..
Jack crawled off to try to find them and that left the two boys….Zach had a rice cake he was muching on and Judah was quite upset that he didn’t have one. Here he is voicing his disapproval.
Judah: “Hey Zach, You don’t mind if I have some of that cookie, do you?”
Judah: “Look, Just hand it over and no one gets hurt.”
Judah: “Wise Move, Dude! Wise Move.”
Judah: “Man, I love these things”
Zach: “What Just Happened?”
Judah: “Yup, I can still fit an entire half a rice cake in my mouth. I’m so amazing!”
Jack got a little upset at Judah for stealing Zach’s Rice Cake….
But he quickly mellowed out when I told him that I had extra rice cakes for everyone.
Zach was pretty happy about that too.
I tried one more time to get a good group shot….
Judah was pretty happy and Jack seemed either mesmerized or traumatized, but Zach wasn’t exactly happy about that creepy looking Uncle Jon who was trying to get the boys to smile.
Either that or he was just upset that Judah kept crowding in on him…
And then he lost it…..
So I grabbed all three of the boys and we had a quick snuggle.
I sure do love these little boys!
Well, I managed to update once yesterday and then it was time for the kids to come home from school and things just went downhill from there.
I forgot to give Jeremy his medicine yesterday and I can’t fathom why his teacher didn’t have him call home. If his behaviour after school was consistent with his behaviour during the day…..all I can say is, “WOW!”
2:59pm Xandra came home from school. My dad dropped her off but Jeremy stayed behind for “Robotics Camp”. Judah was SO excited to see her. He is always so glad to see the kids when they come home.
3:03pm We took this picture to send to Jon, just for Xandra to say, “I love you, Dad!”
3:45pm I find it so hard to believe that we generate THIS MUCH GARBAGE…..I sweep on average, 2-3 times a day and always manage to sweep up a decent mess. Man! Makes we feel like we’re pigs or something……
3:47pm Xandra worked on her homework! She is trying to catch up on a bunch of stuff that she fell behind on over Christmas and in January. She has one more project to hand in and then she’s done…..and then we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief. I’m sick of ragging on her to do her homework!
4:08pm I left Xandra and the computer to babysit and ran up to the school to pick Jeremy up from Robot Camp…..Josiah has watched more movies in the past 7 months than he has in his entire life. At this point, I’m just trying to survive….
4:12pm I had exactly 2 minutes of complete silence before I went in to pick up Jeremy!
4:16pm My Sweet Boy – He LOVES the Robotics Camp and we are so glad that he has found a hobby that he excels at.
4:24pm I managed to throw through a couple of loads of laundry today. Didn’t get them put away, but washed, dried and folded is at least 3/4 of the way through the process…
4:27pm On the other side of the world……here is the wall that is directly across from Geli’s bed…It’s all of us who can’t be with her….cheering her on, if only in picture! You’re never alone, Geli! Never alone!
4:28pm An amazing guy we know dropped off this mini fridge so that Jon and Geli could put decent food in it. The main fridge in the kitchen is always crowded and overflowing and so this is a HUGE blessing! Thanks, Reg! You Rock!
4:48pm Jon sent this picture through of Geli’s room all decorated for Valentines Day! I believe that she and her cousins made these???? Pretty, eh?
5:14pm What is it with 5 o’clock, anyway??? This was the start of many, MANY meltdowns in our family last night.
5:18pm Meanwhile, Jon and geli decided to go for a walk. They went to the Safeway just down the block from BC Children’s Hospital and also to the Dollar Store where they found this sweet pink hat with flames and the name “Angel” on it. They also picked up some socks! You never seen to have enough of something when you are at the hospital…sometimes its underwear, sometimes socks or shirts….something always gets missed in the packing. Unfortunately, we live too far away to just pop over to drop something off and usually they have to determine whether they can wait until we come in next or just go ahead and pick something up.
5:31pm We had soup for dinner, AGAIN! I’m trying to figure out how I can convince the kids to have it one more night. Maybe we’ll do cereal to shake things up a little. We’re living large over here, I tell ya….LIVING LARGE!
5:48pm While we finished up dinner, Jon and Geli walked “home” in the beautiful Vancouver dusk.
6:05pm We had some ice cream for dessert. These are little gluten free Oatmeal cookies with Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream in the middle for a delicious Ice Cream Sandwich!
6:15pm And I’m counting down the minutes until I can put the kids to bed. Don’t want it to be too early because then they get up too early and so I need something to waste some time…..
6:43pm A bath usually takes up a good chunk of time and it’s hard to be miserable when you’re in the bath.
6:44pm Siah’s faces are priceless!
6:56pm Jon and Geli made spaghetti dinner and said it was delicious…they even had seconds!
At this point, I was trying to get boys into bed and things were a little intense. By 8 o’clock, Siah was asleep, Jeremy had woken up Judah, Judah was crying, Jeremy was crying and then I started crying. Between Judah feeling sick with this plague that has swept through our family and cutting teeth, I’ve had less then 4 hours of sleep a night for the last week and those 4 hours……have been in less than 1 hour chunks. Apparently, I can sort of hold myself together for a week with next to no sleep and then…….and then I cannot hold myself together any more.
The house was a complete mess, the cleaners were coming the next day and nothing was picked up for them, the baby was still awake, Jeremy was crying himself to sleep and I was crying and messaging with Jon on my phone.
8:13pm It was a pretty sad moment. I sat on the edge of my bed and rocked and rocked and rocked this little one while messaging with Jon and my momma.
8:27pm And then he slept and then I crawled into bed and began what was to be another LOOOOOOONNGGGG night!
I have an appointment tomorrow morning with our family doctor to get Judah checked out. Xandra, Josiah, and my Momma are starting to do better after a week of whatever this plague is and I’m pretty sure that Judah will be okay as well, but he is wheezing quite a bit and while that’s probably just because his airways are so much smaller, I want to have him checked out before the weekend.
Well, while my family is split up for the next little bit, we decided to send each other pictures of what we are doing so we feel a little less separated and a little more involved.
Here’s what Geli and Jon are doing at 9:46am. They made Eggs & Toast and are eating them in the Kitchen on 2B….We are so thankful that they are on 2B (the 2nd floor of the oncology ward) with access to a kitchen so that they can eat good food and not be stuck with the hospital food. While the hospital food is not “HORRIBLE”, it’s not “DELICIOUS” either.
Here at home, we had sent the kids off to school and were thinking about putting the baby down for a nap. But instead, we took a picture on the stairs.
This was my view at 11:41am…..I’m working on this post, Siah’s watching a movie and Judah’s just chillin’ and eating some steamed taro root cubes.
11:49am and Jon& Geli are up on 3B (the main Oncology ward) and are playing a little air hockey. Jon is WHOOPING Geli’s butt!
They’ve discontinued one of Geli’s Antibiotics. She was on two different ones and now she is only on the broad spectrum one. The cultures that they’ve been doing have all been negative since the 4th day in. Now we are just waiting out this round of antibiotics before she can come home. Aside from feeling a bit “off” first thing in the morning, she’s feeling fabulous. Her counts are still really low. For example, the number that indicates the amount of infection fighting “soldiers” needs to be over .5 for her to even consider going to school….as of this morning, that number was at a .08….so she really has almost no ability to fight anything off right now. We are praying for her numbers to come up quickly. She can’t even start her next round of chemo until that number is at a .75…..we got a ways to go before she hits that.
12:50pm Sometimes, this whole toilet training business is harder than it seems…. He called me to help him and this is how I found him…
1:13pm Judah’s playing with the Shadows on the floor. It’s so nice to see the sun out.
1:18pm Aunty Chelle and the Cousins visit. It’s so nice that they can visit when we can’t…..
1:47pm Geli and Brianna playing a game……
2:17pm This is what over tired, a sore throat and teething looks like….
2:31pm Sleep…..Sweet Sleep!
2:47pm Playing Air Hockey with Baby Zach (with a little help from Aunty Chelle)
I’ll be updating this post with the rest of today’s pics as they happen……
Oh, and if you haven’t yet, would you go here and help me out? Huge thanks to all those who’ve already left your suggestions, I love hearing what you all have to say!
A little perspective from me (Jon)…
I remember clearly the January day in 2005 when Patti looked at me with a worried look on her face and said that she wasn’t feeling the baby move. I remember the Sunday afternoon, feeling tired and wanting to take a nap. I remember thinking about the emotions of a pregnant woman and being thankful that this pregnancy was getting close to a conclusion. I said to Patti, “What could really be wrong? If you haven’t felt him move by later this afternoon then we can go to the hospital and they can do their Doppler thing and you can hear the heart beat and they can tell you that everything is OK.” Then I went and took a nap.
The events of that day are forever embedded in my mind because that was the day that I lost my naivety. As you can discover from reading older posts, we lost our son Nathaniel. That was one of those things that was “never going to happen to us”.
I’m not sure why we tend to excuse ourselves from tragedy, but we do. We think that “bad things don’t happen to good people.” We think that if something bad happens once that we have “had our share of problems” or “paid our dues”, implying that tragedy will over-look us in the future. Coming face to face with tragedy, illness, death, financial catastrophe may do many and different things to each person, but one thing is common to all, we loose some naivety.
Loosing our son rocked us individually, it rocked our marriage, it changed our perspective on life, on relationship with God. It made us stronger and it made us more fragile. Having Angelica diagnosed with Leukemia this summer took another blow at our naivety. I can’t say what the end result will be, because we are still in the throws of shock and coping and cleaning and sanitizing and the emotional randomness that exists in our home. I can say that loosing naivety makes you a little weaker; not as bold and unquestioningly confident.
I called this post “side effects” because side effects are the unintended or unexpected or unpredictable consequences to an otherwise straightforward course of action. For example, Angelica gets a drug that will help to stop the reproduction of Leukemia cells and at the same time build up blood marrow… the side effect was temporary diabetes.
Getting to the point… Blood cancers are often discovered while treating “flu like symptoms” and when those symptoms present in another of your children, there is nothing to stop you from mentally wondering “what if”… The other night our baby, Judah, was feeling ill. He had a fever and signs of the flu. He had also had some sort of digestive problem where he has had a lot of diarrhea and sometimes a bit of blood and mucus in his stool. As the evening wore on, I could see that Patti’s anxiety was growing. As we went to bed, Patti was really concerned and I was laying there beside her and felt unable to console her… or myself for that matter. I can no longer say “everything is ok”. I can no longer say “you’re over-reacting”. I can also no longer shrug it off and forget about it. I am now aware that this kind of thing can happen. I am now aware that it can happen to good people. I am now aware that “lightning can strike twice.”
I brought this up at BC Children’s hospital at our last appointment and discovered that the oncology clinic there commonly writes orders for blood counts for siblings and parents of oncology patients, because as it would turn out, this is a common “side effect”.
After seeing a doctor, and checking things out, we know that Judah is OK. He had the flu and is mostly healed and is acting much healthier, but the naivety that something could go wrong is gone. Now this doesn’t make us pessimistic, where we sit around expecting catastrophes all the time… far from it. We expect that things will go well with us and we expect there to be blessings that come our way. We actually remain optimistic… but when “symptoms” of something negative start to appear, they are not as easy to dismiss.
~ Jon ~
After lunch, we headed back to the hotel and even before we got there, the kids were already asking to go swimming.
So we all got our bathing suits on and headed back to the pool.
The pool had actually been closed for maintenance and had just re-opened all clean and sparkly on the day before we arrived. Between that and the fact that we were the only ones in the pool the entire time we were there…..it was perfect for someone with a compromised immune system.
Josiah was SO excited to be able to be swimming. He spent the majority of the time in the hot tub, and so did I. We typically would go swimming every week, but, back in the summer, we had to cancel our membership to the Walnut Grove Rec Centre because the pool is just not a great place for Geli and we didn’t want the other kids picking something up and bringing it home and so it was such a treat to be able to swim as much as we wanted for a few days.
Jon and Jeremy and Judah hit the weight room before they came swimming…..
I think this was the most exciting part of the weight room – for Jeremy…..
We don’t have cable and so it was such a treat.
Judah worked on some push ups…..gotta build up that upper body strength, eh?
This is the 80 ft water slide that is inside the hotel. It was AWESOME! It’s almost pitch black inside the tube and you can get going pretty fast. It took a while and a little bit of coaxing, but even Josiah went down the slide.
There were lots of smiles….
and a lot of silliness…..
And SO. MUCH. SWIMMING!
It was so amazing to step away from everything. To get away from our house, from school, from work, from cleaning, for deadlines, from everything and to just do something totally fun together as a family. After Swimming on Tuesday morning, Jeremy snuggled up next to Jon and looked close into his eyes and said, “Thank you Daddy. Thank you SO MUCH for bringing us here. This is the BEST EVER!” All the kids mentioned many times, just how thankful and grateful they were to be able to get away and to stay at the hotel and to go swimming.
Everyone relaxed and it felt like everyone was able to catch their breaths and de-stress a little.
It’s amazing how little time it took, once we got home, for everyone to try to pick up the stress again. Xani came to me panicking about school and homework and I actually told her that for that night, we were still on vacation and that she got to relax and take it easy and then tomorrow she could make a list of everything she needed to get done and to then start plugging away at it.
This is kind of where we are at. Times away like this are so precious, because we do kind of have this weight of stress that we are living under. It’s like our reserves for dealing with normal (stressful) situations are all gone and we have barely enough to just hang on in each moment. I know this is not forever, but it does wear on me to see it playing out in my children. Children are not supposed to be stressed like this.
But, not to focus on the negative…..our time away was so fabulous. So needed. Such a blessing. So fun…..it was simply amazing.
We are so grateful to Jon’s parents for coming with us. It drastically reduced the kid to adult ratio…we were only out numbered by one. It was a blast to hang out with and to be able to spend some time away with them.
We are so thankful to the Super 8 in Aldergrove for giving us a great deal. We so hope to be able to come back again.
And we are so grateful that we were even afforded this amazing time away. Thank you, thank you, thank you. The opportunity to escape was such a gift.
If you are interested in seeing the rest of the pictures from our time away, click here...
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!
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!