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December 27, 2006
By Margot | December 27, 2006
Merry two days after Christmas! Happy Holidays! We had a wonderful Christmas. The boys left carrots for the reindeer and homemade cookies (made by them) and milk for Santa and Santa delivered for them. Big smiles on their faces Christmas morning -bike, power ranger suit, double light saber, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. My two personal favorites were the exceptionally loud drum from Uncle Paul (we will get you back for that) and the ant farm from Uncle Dave. Thanks for that Uncle Dave, we’ll let you know how that goes. We had Christmas Eve at the Adams family and the boys had a great time with Mimi and the Colburn boys running around playing tag and smashing boxes and such. We had Christmas dinner at the Monacos and there were plenty of kids. They all had a great time. Sammy brought his new bike over and Andy brought his new scooter and they all scootered and biked up and down the alley-way while Neil kept an eye on them. I marvel at Sammy’s energy. Andy was cracking us up. He kept throwing himself off his scooter so that Alisia Savoca could help him up. He would lay on the ground and say, “Alisia, Alisia, I fell down again.” If I went over to help him up he would wave me away and call for Alisia. Not even four yet and already working it. Sam thought it was really funny too.
Sammy has been going full steam for the past week. We went to SeaWorld with Ally, Andrew and Ava last week and he ran around there as if there weren’t a thing wrong with him. It’s been beautiful 75 degree weather up until today and we’ve been to the park with the bikes and scooters most days. Sam’s been playing tag, soccer, climbing trees, etc. We were at the park the other day and were waiting for little Joe to show up and play and there was a bald dad pitching to his son. Sammy asked me if he could hit some so I asked and they said sure so Sammy hit the ball until Joe showed up and they started scootering. Later the dad was sitting on the stairs to the slide watching his daughter play and Sam very sweetly went up to him, took off his hat and said, “I have short hair too.” I could tell the Dad was really touched. Sammy said it as if he were trying to make the guy feel better about his hair. Joe was scootering by and stopped and added matter-of- factly, “Yeah, he has a tumor in his leg. It went away but now it’s back and we have to fight it again.” Then he just scootered on not realizing how much the “we” in his sentence went striaght to my heart. He’s a great little buddy. Today we began three days of chemo. We played Mario Uno which Sam was thrilled to discover and several games of his new Sorry game that Maureen got him. He loves to bump me back to start. We played “Chest” as he calls it and had quite a gallery watching us and giving Sam advice on his moves. Both Jose and Daniel (I think they are orderlies, great guys) were in the chess club so they were mortified by most of my moves. I left Neil there playing with him this afternoon. They should be home around seven. Sammy and I went down to the cafeteria to get snack and we both had massages in the massage chair. They have two massage chairs and if you put in a dollar you get three minutes. Sammy loves to run through all of my dollars and sit his little body in the big chair and get totally jiggled around. He has a big grin on his face and always goes, “uhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh.” for sound effects.
Baking with the boys this holiday season was quite the experience. They wanted to make their own cookies for Santa. First of all, Sam and Andy fight over who gets to put what in so the flour goes flying. As I’m looking in the refrigerator to find the eggs and butter, Andy is putting a big hand print in the flour just to see it go pouf! I rationalize that it’s ok because he washed his hands, then he tries it with his elbow and I’m not so sure of the baking etiquette there. Sammy wants to taste the vanilla though I keep telling him that it doesn’t taste very good, it only smells good. After several “Pleease, Mom?” I say ok but you asked for it. I give him a small taste and he spits it where? At me? No. In the sink? No. Right into the cookie batter. So we scrap that batch and start again. I won’t even get into the decorating phase of the process. Charlie hung out in the Bjorn and watched the proceedings trying to figure out how to get some of the cookie dough into his mouth. Now that he’s starting solid foods he’s grabbing at all food and since he’s already wearing 6 to 9 month clothing, it gives me a prelude to what our grocery bill is going to be when he gets older.
Andy is starting to warm up to Charlie a bit these days. Probably because he sees him as a potential partner in crime, he got great present from Santa that Andy can abscond with, and possibly because he realizes that Charlie is a chick magnet. Yesterday we were at the park and there were some eight year old girls playing on the spinny thing. Andrew walked up to the them and said, (really, he said this) “Hi girls, do you want to see my baby?” Then he ran over to me and said, “Mom, mom, show the girls Charlie!” So I brought Charlie over and the eight year olds oohed and ahead over him and all the while Andy was not so gently patting him on the head saying, “Yeah, this is Charlie, he’s a baby.” Then the girls ended up playing with Sam and Andy for the rest of the afternoon.
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about around here, it turns out that Charlie is a thrill seeker. Every time he is lying on the bed (any bed) Andrew proceeds to jump on it sending Charlie flying around. As I calmly and authoritatively tell Andrew that this is not acceptable (read: shriek at him to stop it) I see that Charlie is laughing hysterically having a great time. Andrew is protesting as I remove him from the situation, “But Mom, he likes it!” Whenever Sam and Andy beg me to play chase and I’m wearing Charlie, I’ll run a few steps trying not to joggle his little head and he laughs like it’s the greatest thing. I don’t even want to think of Andy’s plans if we bring the jolly jumper in for Charlie.
Significant numbers of today: LDH: 650 (normal between 400 and 900) Wohoo! Weight: 19.3 (still way too skinny) We are back at chemo tomorrow and Friday. Scans will be next or early the following. I’ll post when they are scheduled.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on December 27, 2006
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