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Holidays

By Margot | December 15, 2011

Christmas Pics by Meredith Brunette

Nutty Sam 2005

Sam Ornament

Well we did it. We braved getting a tree and we decorated it with all of our ornaments and we sent out Christmas cards and we didn’t skip Christmas this year. It sucked and it was good. Charlie and Andy were so excited about the tree and decorating to Christmas music with hot chocolate. Uncle Matt did the lights on the tree (redid my lights on the tree) and Neil did the lights outside and decorated and we had tacos for dinner in honor of Sam. All of the Sam ornaments were good to see. The very best of all was a 5 by 7 picture of him wearing a beanie in a little holiday frame with his big giant smile. I kept thinking, we would have had to wait another year to see this picture if we hadn’t put up the tree. Plus really, there is not much better than a five year-old and an eight year-old at Christmas. Andy and Charlie are so excited.

We are going to New Mexico for a week and we’ll get some snow and hopefully some skiing. Tomorrow is the boys last day of school and Andy has a student council breakfast party, a fieldtrip, and a party in his class and Charlie and I are bringing two dozen sugar cookies that the boys and I made the dough for last night for his Christmas party. Andy has two basketball games this evening and then we will race to the school art show afterwards where we can pick up some of the Andy and Charlie’s art. Charlie is very excited because we have little ornaments from past art shows with Sam and Andy’s pictures on them and Charlie really wants one of him up there so we’ll pick it up tonight. Charlie’s basketball season is starting and he’s excited about it. He can do a shuffle dance move now which is very funny. Someone taught it to him at recess and he’s been doing it all over the house and in restaurants lately. Andy’s soccer team won their league tournament and Andy did very well. He’s such a hard worker at everything. In this new league we go to the soccer State Cup. It’s over his birthday weekend in Palmdale, California and I think Andy is more excited about staying in a hotel with his team than anything else.

Neil has been exercising a lot -doing P90X actually. He keeps making us all laugh when he jokingly asks for directions to the “gun show” while showing his muscles. He’s running a basketball scrimmage every Wednesday afternoon at the rec center for Andy and about fifteen other kids so they can just run the court without so much structure -they love it.

I’m trying to power through Christmas same as last year. I’ve been tripped up with grief a lot more this Christmas – maybe last year I didn’t let myself go there much. Conversely, I’ve also really been trying to enjoy the boys. They are so funny and full of life. Charlie and I are reading Junie B. books now. I read them all with Sam in the hospital and both boys and I are reading the Goblet of Fire -Harry Potter together though we joke that as soon as I open the book, Charlie falls asleep. Uncle Matt and I took them to see a production of The Grinch at The Old Globe theatre. They grouched about it the whole way there saying “they don’t like plays, they are sports guys.” Their mother full of Christmas spirit replied that they will not just be “sports boys” and they are going to get some culture if she has to shove it down their throat. Very Nice. I did try to explain that they can’t hate all plays and that they just have to find the right one. They weren’t buying it though. It all worked out because they loved the play. Score one for culture ;-). Going to try and get them to one a year.

Cherish Your Family This Christmas! And please keep those fighting this rotten disease in your thoughts -the Chance family in particular this year.

Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 11 Comments »

Halloween

By Margot | November 3, 2011

Sam and Joe

We had a good Halloween. The boys were very revved up and since the school carnival was on Friday and they went to a party on Saturday and then trick-or-treated on Monday, they had three full days of Halloween. I was in charge of the Pie Eating contest for the school carnival and afterwards ushered the boys around. Andy made it through the haunted house this year – big step for him. He was Lionel Messi the soccer player and Charlie was going to be a ninja but I ordered Andy’s costume from iOffer.com to save some money and then read all of these horrible reviews on Google by ticked off customers who never recieved what they ordered. I emailed someone in China and they said it might take up to 45 days. I figured I’d been had and ordered another one from Amazon and they both came on the same day. Charlie, noting that we had two Messi costumes, ditched his ninja costumes and became Messi jr. Andy protested loudly at first but then was all right with it. It made for a family themed costume as Neil wore his Beckham jersey and I was a goalie. We of course carved a pumpkin for Sam and I did his name as big as I could get it on the big pumpkin. Andy picked out the biggest for him. Andy and Charlie picked out very complicated stencils for their pumpkins and then lost interest after the tops were cut off and left good ol’ mom to struggle with the intricate carvings.

Andy’s political career has begun. He won safety officer at school and is so excited to be on student council. He worked really hard on his speech and we were very proud of him. I had to laugh at the Halloween party on Saturday he said to a 5th grade girl, “Aren’t you the new IB ambassador for student council?” When she replied yes, he said proudly, “I’m safety officer.” His speech is too big to paste on here but I’ll put a link to it at the end of this update. Andy’s doing really well at soccer, started flag football on Sundays which he loves (scary) and is starting basketball twice a week. Nothing like keeping busy.

Charlie is enjoying school and starting to make new friends. It’s been smooth sailing in his K-1 class for the past few weeks. I’m volunteering on library days. The library teacher was reading a story about Thanksgiving and asked the kids what they appreciate and are thankful for and Charlie raised his hand and said he’s thankful he has a Wii. One of those proud motherhood moments. He’s doing Mad science after school and is also having a great time on the soccer field scoring a lot and he actually passed last Saturday (a first ;-).

We got through another Halloween without Sam and have officially kicked off the holiday season. Mainly we’ve kept our crazy schedule which keeps me sane and moving. I kept thinking of how much Sam loved Halloween and Christmas and how excited he got every year, but this year I had a thought that he would have been in middle school and almost too cool for it (not yet probably). Thank you to everyone for the kind comments on my last post reminding me that Sam will not be forgotten. I do panic sometimes. Can’t tell you how much those comments meant to me and Neil. I had a dream about Sam that he was out playing with the neighborhood kids and before that I was helping him with his homework. I was so happy and I asked him how he was getting home from school because I was only picking up Charlie and Andy and he said, “I’m in middle school now, Mom, I walk home.” In my dream I was talking to another mother while the kids all played in the neighborhood. She said she lost her daughter to neuroblastoma and I answered, “our oldest died as well” and then I thought, “but no he’s right here, I just talked to him” and then it dawned on me in my dream “but he is going to die.” and I started to cry. I woke up looking for him thinking he wasn’t gone yet. Ugh. Sorry-didn’t mean to make this update take a sad turn. We are really doing ok for the most part. There isn’t a better word to describe our life than bittersweet. The bitter and sweet can both come so quickly and close together.

I’m pasting a link to Andy’s speech on YouTube because I know it will make you smile: http://youtu.be/KuBT9af3P6A Couldn’t figure out how to get it on the TeamSam YouTube page but I’ll change it as soon as I figure it out.

Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 10 Comments »

Settling in to the School Year

By Margot | October 4, 2011

We are settling in to the school year. The boys are busy with soccer and basketball. Andy is running for safety officer (one of the two positions you can run for as a third grader). Maybe his nickname of “The Mayor” will come true some day. He’s so excited and nervous about it and we worked on his speech last night and will start on posters this weekend. Seems like a lot of work for Mom 😉 I told him this morning that if he doesn’t win (since he’s so nervous about it) at least we can console ourselves with the fact that we can still be a little late on assembly days instead of having to get there early for student council. Andy loves his new teacher Mrs. Brauch and I like her a lot too. I can tell she “gets” Andy. He made it through his tonsil surgery fine, though it was a lot more painful for him than I expected and it took a full week for him to recover. Being in Children’s Hospital sitting next to him with the pole and the pump and the works was a “return to Vietnam-like” experience. I almost physically pushed the orderly out of the way who was trying to say that he had to push the pole so Andrew could go to the bathroom. I felt like telling him, “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve pushed this pole and how many crazy machinations I’ve done with it to get places and do things with Sam?” But I didn’t.

Charlie boy has had some drama this year. He was happily ensconced in kindergarten and doing very well and happy and then because of the large class sizes, they pulled him out the second week and put him in a K-1 combination class. He had a hard time the first few days and there were a lot of tears and I got all in an uproar and met with everyone to try and move him back and then he came home and said he wanted to stay in the K-1 class. Last week Neil was calling him Ferris Buehler because he gave himself a couple of days off with a phantom stomach ache that mysteriously dissappeared when he walked out of the school office doors. Neil said when he went to check on him every teacher in the school and parents kept asking, “How is Charlie?” and he felt like Ferris’s sister as he answered, “He’s fine!” He is settling in this week and seems to be happy. I’m trying to volunteer in the early morning at least one day a week to keep tabs on him as he’s in class with some seven year olds. He’s made good friends at recess though and likes his Monday after school mad science.

Halloween is approaching and it will bring our second holiday season without Sam. Halloween was his favorite and we would start getting ready for it really early. We will carve a pumpkin for him of course and put up his favorite decorations if I can stomach it.Andrew wants to be Messi (the soccer player) like Sam was Beckham and Charlie is going to be a Ninja again.

Neil and I are staying afloat, staying busy working and parenting. I ran the Max’s Lemon Run a couple of weeks ago and got to meet Jay Scott of Alex’s Lemonade Stand. A great and funny guy.

Please keep remembering Sam. I’ve been getting a bit panicky lately that as time goes by it will just be us who remember our amazing, funny boy.

Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 24 Comments »

First Week of School

By Margot | September 8, 2011

Charlie and Andy on First Day of School

Sam and Andy first day three years ago

The Boys on the Star of India last Weekend

Boys and me on the Front of a Russian Sub

The boys had a good first week of school. Charlie didn’t cry at all. Just said “Bye Mom, Bye Dad.” and sat down on his carpet square. He was going over his addition in the car on the way to school the first day and I had to tell him he won’t get to that for another year. Andy’s big brotherly advice, “Charlie if you say wiener, or show people your wiener at school you will be expelled and then my popularity will be finished.” Actually a valid concern with Charlie who was a bit of a nudist over the summer. The house is completely quiet while Neil and I are working which is so odd. It’s been smoking hot here which is hard on the teachers and the kids but makes for beautiful beach days after school. Yesterday was half day and we went and boogie boarded with Kelly and Jett and Kennan later in the afternoon.

Andy has a teacher who is new to our school and Charlie has Miss Hill. Neither of them ever had Sam – though I know Ms. Hill followed our website and knew both boys well. I so want them to love the boys. Especially Mrs. Brauch who doesn’t know us at all. I know it doesn’t work this way but I have this irrational thought that the rest of the boys lives should go completely smoothly after Sam. I know, I know, aside from being completely unrealistic, it wouldn’t be good if their lives were a cakewalk but I still have that thought. Poor Ms. Hill has thirty kids in her class and I can’t figure out why kindergarten of all the classes has the most kids. Andy only has 24. Anyway, I’m trying not to be helicopter parent (at least yet ;-).

Sam’s class is in middle school. I talked to several parents who said they didn’t want their parents to walk them in or take their picture in front of the school. Such a new chapter. I think middle school might have been harder for Sam with Cancer. His friends and classmates were so protective of him in elementary school and middle has so many more kids that wouldn’t have known him and the dynamic would have been totally different. Also, I know he would have had a whole different awareness of cancer itself that I’m glad he didn’t have. Though I’m sure our sweet Sam would have had everyone loving him and pulling for him before we knew it and would have handled it all with grace and his little wry smile.

I am getting lots of work done this week and lots of exercise. Soccer games start this Saturday and I’m coaching Charlie’s team and will miss Andy’s first game but he has another game on Sunday. Last weekend was one of our first sportsless weekends and we did some beach days and relaxed a lot. On Saturday Maureen and I took the boys down to Old Town, we ended up riding the trolley. We got off downtown and there was a boatfest going on and we climbed around on all the boats. That’s where we took the pictures above. It was very spontaneous and fun. Andy is getting his tonsils and adnoids taken out on Tuesday. The surgeon giving us the whole run down of surgery and what happens were surprised when we held up our hand to stop and said, “Yes, we know the drill.” So we will be spending some time at Children’s Hospital next week.

Please keep our little friends Jack Bartoz, Patrick Chance in your thoughts.
They have both gotten bad news lately. September is Childhood Cancer awareness month. Please keep in mind all of the children who spent their first day of school in the hospital or at home with low counts.

Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 3 Comments »

“Six hours, feel the pain Charlie.”

By Margot | August 24, 2011

The title of this post is Andrew’s answer to Charlie’s question of “How long does school last?” I swear that kid can come up with some good one liners.

Charlie will be “feeling the pain” in two weeks and marking a new chapter for the whole family. It will be the first time in eleven years someone hasn’t been home at least part of the school day. Sam would be starting middle school and though I don’t imagine the first day of school is not going to be hard, the rest of the year, will be a bit easier. I will not run into his friends around every corner at school. I will not have to step into the fifth grade room and imagine his smiling face and have to run out to avoid a panic attack (or maybe that will still happen). There are so many memories for us of Sam at our little school that he will be ever present there but this year will be a little different in that his class will not be there. It also means that my little boys are growing up. They have both grown so much this summer. Both on the trip to Colorado making extraordinary firsts, Andrew catching his first fish on a fly rod with Grandpa, with his new soccer team forging new friendships and working his tail off, Charlie, with his rock climbing persistence and hitting the big five. Charlie blows us away sometimes with his memory. We were talking about going to meet some friends of mine from the office for lunch and Andrew said, “Who?” and Charlie said, “You remember, she had two little girls, Kansas and her little sister, and they named their cats Opitmus Prime and Lucy.” He’d only met them once and it was over a year ago. I didn’t even remeber their cats’ names. Neil and I looked at each other like, “Where did this kid come from?” He loves to practice baseball and soccer as those are his current sports of choice. I’m coaching his soccer team this fall.

Although I am under no illusions that my little five year-old kindergartner and my big third grader will no longer need me, the fact that Charlie is off to school is a little mentally terrifying. I’ve been so good about wrapping myself up in the boys needs and their world to keep going that I don’t want to contemplate any alternative. I suppose I could just do it forever and be one of those hovery mother-in-laws that will make my daughter-in-laws want to pull their hair out by telling them just how Andy likes his BLT and how Charlie likes his chocolate milk. I’ll be just like the mother in “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

I have finally had some dreams about Sam, though they’d both be considered by a therapist, if I ever saw one, as nightmares I could still in my dream feel my whole body tingle with happiness at seeing him. I was expressing frustration to my friend Mallary(she lost her husband Ed to cancer), who is one of my friends who has been forced to be my surrogate therapist, on not dreaming of Sam more and she said such a smart and obvious thing to me, “If we knew we could dream about them, if we could summon it, we’d never get out of bed.” Duh! Of course. Hope you don’t mind my quoting you again, Mallary.

Anyway, that’s my update. I’ll post pictures of the first day of school as our little Charlie boy takes his first step into big kid world (though in his mind, he’s been there for at least three years now).

Please keep the kids still fighting and the other angel parents in your thoughts. The humanized 3f8 trial is finally open and I hope that it makes dreams come true.

Topics: Progress Reports | 6 Comments »

Mr. Baby Dude is Five Today

By Margot | August 11, 2011

Rock Climbing in Colorado

Happy Birthday Charlie Boy! Big five today. This picture is of him rock climbing in Colorado. He was so persistant in getting to the top that I thought I’d post this picture. He slipped down about twenty times but he wouldn’t give up and he got to the top and hit the button and everyone watching below clapped and one woman said, “Wow, that is one persistant kid.” We had a big Pump it Up party for him yesterday and he is loving being the birthday boy. He woke up yesterday and said, “What do you say to me today, Mom?” It was funny since his actual birthday is today. His new obsession is baseball. He’s wearing his new Red Sox shirt and his new batting gloves. I can’t believe he is starting kindergarten in three weeks. He bought new shoes with Uncle Matt a few weeks ago and they just screamed Sam. They had all different colors and red shoe laces and he said, “Dad, do you know why I picked red shoe laces? To celebrate Sam.”

Nothing shows the passing of time as much as watching these boys grow. They’ve done so much this summer. I’m racing out to get the birthday boy some fun today but will update on our summer complete with pics in a couple of days.

We love you Charlie Boy!

Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 6 Comments »

Eleven

By Margot | July 13, 2011

9th Birthday

: 5th Birthday

8th Birthday

1st Birthday

3rd Birthday Party with Joe

6th Brithday

2nd Birthday

4th Birthday

7th Birthday

Happy Birthday Sammo! You would be eleven today. We would be starting a new chapter with middle school in the fall. I keep thinking of all those computer renderings of what people might look like as they age and even though it’s only a year, I wonder how you would have changed this past year. You live through all of us and our memories of you. And we remember you always. Your brothers have been keeping up lots of Sharks and Minnows and Marco Polo in the pool this summer following in your tradition. Andy is playing lots of soccer and I just bought him size SIX cleats, geez. He talks about you all the time. I wish you were here to tease him about his feet. He says he needs to keep growing like a weed. Charlie has so many of your facial expressions, it’s crazy. It takes my and Dad’s breath away sometimes. We wish you were here to help usher him in to kindergarten, I know you’d be so proud of him.

We have been watching the women’s world cup and thinking of you. Charlie just ran upstairs to tell me that the USA made a goal and dragged me down to see the replay. Wish you were here to watch it with us. We are all going up to the park tonight to play baseball and soccer and football and have a picnic and let some balloons go. All your friends will be there, buddy. We love you and miss you and think of you always. Happy Birthday!

Love, Mom, Dad, Andy and Mr. Baby Dude

Topics: Progress Reports | 14 Comments »

End of School/Beginning of Summer

By Margot | June 15, 2011

Andy at Hoover Dam

Boys in front of Hoover Dam

Morning Gang at Sam's All Star Lemonade Stand that we did for Touch a Truck

Afternoon crew, Mack, Grant and Dane drinking lemonade

Back of the TeamSam "Get in the Game" T-shirts

Picture of Lemonade Stand

Afternoon crew with Sam's pic.

It’s been an emotional few weeks. We did a lemonade stand for Touch a Truck (which was a fantastic event by the way). The Mikulaks work their tails off to set it up and it’s great for all the kids and raised a ton of money for cancer research). Everyone helped out as you can see from the pictures and now we know how to make a mean lemonade. Seeing all the nurses and cancer families there was good.

Andy’s last day of school was on Monday. Sam’s class graduated from Elementary school and seeing the boys all dressed up in their suits just brought me to my knees. I didn’t quite make it back to the car with a stiff upper lip. I went running with Meredith and Kelly afterwards and felt much better. Then today I intentially tortured myself by looking at all of the pictures and videos people put up on Facebook. Boy would Sam have been proud. We sponsored six kids this year for the Sam Hutchison Reading Scholarship to go to the reading program at UCSD and SDSU over the summer.

Today was also Charlie’s official last day of preschool. I can’t believe it. He and Andy will be in elementary together next year and we say goodbye to his little preschool. Killer. He of course says he’s so happy to be done with preschool (which I knowÂ is a front). I told him he was going to miss it and his teachers and he said, “Maybe when I’m twenty or something I’ll miss it.” He’s been hanging out with his best buddy Jett (Kelly and I are in for it when those two get older) and is looking forward to flag football camp this summer. Andy is already in a basketball camp which started the day after school let out (not the best planning by me). He goes from 9 to 4 and is exhausted by the end of the day. Yesterday he had baseball practice after camp and I thought he was going to be a puddle, he was so tired. If he were to tell you about it he would say ALL STAR baseball practice with the All Star part very loud so you didn’t miss it. It’s pretty funny. He’s doing great though and had a wonderful school year. I’m going to try and not make his whole summer running from one thing to the next though so far hasn’t worked out that way.

We took an impromtu trip to The Hoover Dam this May and I went to New York for work. The Hoover Dam was a fun spur of the moment road trip which the boys really liked. We spent a night in Vegas which was kind of a disaster, we got there too late for any of the pools or fun kid stuff to be open so the kids just saw a lot of drunk people and guys handing out icky cards. According to Fodor’s Vegas gave up on being kid friendly years ago. We met a waitress at the cafe near The Hoover Dam who said she wished the mob still ran Vegas. According to her it was so much nicer then. It was funny to meet someone nostalgic for the mob. We’re hoping to do a few trips this summer but we haven’t made plans yet.

I’ve been awful about updating this site but I’ve decided I want to keep updating it – though most people have probably given up on it. The reason I want to keep it going is because I use it so much to look back and remember Sam and what he was doing and saying and all the little details that I had forgotten. It’s such a goldmine of memories for me. I’m hoping it will be for Andy and Charlie some day too -for their memories and for them to know how much they remember and honor Sam. All of Andy’s writing from the school year came home at the end of the year and so much of it was about Sam (there were also parts in his journal that made me cry laughing). He’s such a funny kid.

Anyway, thanks for checking in.
Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 16 Comments »

Spring/Easter

By Margot | April 24, 2011

Andy Flying for the Slam -Blake Griffin watch out!

The Double Slam by Charlie and Jett

Andy crossing homeplate after a homerun

Sam Easter 2009

Happy Easter to All. As you can see from the photos, the boys have been busy. They had a great Easter morning starting with the treasure hunt for their basket that the Easter Bunny leaves for them. Charlie, who is usually our late sleeper, popped right up ready to go and rousted everyone out of bed at the crack of dawn to start the hunt. Grandpa and Grandma Stevie are here and we are going up to brunch at the house of their friends today. Grandpa did an awesome science presentation for the 2nd grade complete with liquid nitrogen and all kinds of cool tricks.

To say that Easter makes me think of Sam seems silly since every holiday and everything makes me think of him. He got a lot of joy out of Easter though and loved egg hunts. We would do hunts for days before and after Easter when he was little. The Easter Bunny hid an egg today right next to his soccer ball.

The pool pictures above are from Spring Break. We went to Borrego Springs with the Thomases and the Brunnettes. It was great because all the kids had a friend. We had the place practically to ourselves. We took the kids on a big hike where they saw big horn sheep and narrowly missed a rattle snake (we were warned off by some people coming back the other way). Though there wasn’t a fancy slide at the pool, as you can see from the pictures, the kids dreamed up their own fun.

We are almost finished with Charlie’s soccer season. He and Jett are the stars of the team – the rest of the team is somewhat painful but they’ve made progress over the season. Coach Kelly and I have one more game to survive as coaches. Charlie loves it though so it’s worth it. I am registering him for kindergarten in the fall and I just can’t believe it. He’s ready to go, reading and math – wise, though he’s intially shy in big groups like Sam was. Andy is really pounding the ball in baseball. The outfielders backed up yesterday when he was up. He’s starting his first club soccer team also -which is going to be a big time sucker. His number one sport though is still basketball and he still dribbles the ball wherever he goes. School is going well for him and after reading “Who was Albert Einstein?” at school he thinks he wants to be a physicist – music to his grandfather’s ears ;-).

We’ve gotten to see Uncle Paul this spring. He came from Australia to set up the US operations for Make My Day. The boys had a great time with him and it’ll be nice if he and the whole Maley family get back here more often for business. Neil and I are both working and parenting and putting one foot in front of the other. Neil’s business going very well. I’m going to BEA (Book Expo) in New York at the end of May, my first business trip in quite a while.

Sorry for the long time in updates. I keep resolving to do better. We survived Sam’s one year anniversary surrounded by friends and family – thank you all for that. We will do an All Star Lemonade stand at Touch a Truck this year and we are donating reading scholarships to Kate Sessions again for the summer reading program. Please keep all the families still fighting in your thoughts and prayers.

Margot

Topics: Progress Reports | 7 Comments »