Tuesday's Run Down

DISCLAIMER: PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE ME OR MY CHILDREN BY THIS POST! KEEP IN MIND THEY ARE GOOD, SWEET KIDS MOST OF THE TIME, BUT THIS WAS A BAD DAY! A REALLY BAD DAY!

My day went something like this...
-Rob gets up early for a baseball clinic.
-I get the kids up and ready and apparently BOTH of them have woken up on the wrong side of the bed.
-Cade has a total breakdown about some pg-13 Star Wars movie that I will not let him watch until he is 13!
-Cora throws a toy at Cade and tells him to "hush his mouth."
- Cade cries harder.
- Cora and mommy have a heart to heart about how you throw balls and play with toys, but if you throw things at your brother, a spanking is the consequence. (yes, we spank, not often, but we do!)
- We all go to the car (crying)
- I forget something and run back to the house.
- I return to find Cade crying HARDER and Cora yelling something to the effect of "this van has 2 doors and that's MY door! Don't get in my door!"
- Between cries Cade sputters out that Cora has thrown a bottle of nail polish at him for using "HER" door.
- Cora verifies this.
- I spank Cora's hand firmly.
- Cora flies into hysterics and then a total rage!
- I get in the drivers seat in time to see Cora beat red, clinched fists, and violently screaming at the top of her lungs. She then looks at me and yells, "YOU'RE FIRED!"
- Cade's crying turns to roaring laughter and I try hard to keep a straight face.
- We drop Cade off at Vacation Bible School.
- Cora finds a sucker in the car and stops crying when I tell her she can have it. (breakfast of champions)
- Cora and I drive to clinic to get her counts checked.
- We walk all the way to the building and once we reach the doors, Cora falls completely apart and says, "I wanted to ride in to the building in my stroller!"
- I try to reason and tell her we are all ready here and the car is far.
- No luck, she goes boneless and falls on the ground.
- About this time one of her FAVORITE nurses walks out and says, "Hey Cora, what's wrong?"
- Cora screams, "AHHHHHHH! DON'T LOOK AT ME!"
- I get her a little calmer and we proceed into the building cautiously.
- Upon our arrival we are greeted by the ever so sweet childlife specialist, Ms. Annie, who Cora adores. She too says, "Hey Cora. What's wrong?"
- Cora throws her sucker at Ms. Annie. (yes, she did!)
- Mommy is enraged and has had enough.
- Mommy escorts Cora outside and spanks her firmly again, this time on the hiney
- Eventually Cora calms and we make it pretty much through the visit incident free.
- Cora's ANC was 2364! Yay for an immune system!
- Dr. G wrote Cora a prescription for orthodic inserts for her shoes because she now walks so flat footed that her ankles look like they may buckle. This is partially due to the chemo. (One more thing for mommy to worry about!)
- We pick Cade and his friend up from VBS.
- Eat lunch
- Send Cade and his friend to the slip and slide where they stayed for the next 2 hours.
- Attempted to put Cora down for a nap, once, twice, three, four, times. She continued to get up until daddy (who is WAY too much of a sucker for Cora) agrees to lay down with her. They both fall asleep.
- laundry, house pick up, monitoring the WWF on the slip and slide
- Cora wakes up and sticks Dora stickers all over the coffee table and squirts cherry burst shampoo all over her play kitchen.
- Walk
- Dinner with some interesting conversation about how Cade has now decided that he wants to be an archeologist in Rome (good luck with that, Cade!).
- Dinner clean up and bath
- At this point, I am BEAT! I am totally over Cora and her antics and I am near tears wondering where I went wrong with this unruly child!!!!! What the heck has gotten into her? How on Earth will she go to preschool next year?
- Rob and Cade are doing Math flash cards and I lay on the couch.
- Cora empties her entire piggy bank on the floor ( I am BEYOND caring).
- Cora brings me a box on the couch that has coins and a folded up piece of paper in it and says, "This is for you mommy."
- I half heartedly say "oh thanks!"
- She says, "It's medical fund money and a card." I get a little more interested at where she's going here.
- She continues, "I will read you the card." unfolds the paper "Dear Mandy, I hope you are having a good day and a good year. I pray for you everyday because you are a good mommy and I hope you feel better."
- Cora puts the paper down and hugs me.


So I decide to not worry too much! Because yes, she had a bad day. She's still two. But, she is learning. Maybe we need to work on not throwing objects at people, but she is learning a lesson way more important. (well maybe not way more important!) She is learning about generosity, caring about others, and prayer. And she is learning it because of you! Our family and friends who continually reach out to us! It really does take a village to raise a child! Thank you! I am glad somebody's getting through to her!

Ode to Daddy by Cade and Cora

I love my daddy because...
he's nice,
he's kind,
he's sweet,
he mows,
he lays blankets on the floor and lets me lay on him,
he puts bandaids on me and uses the brown bottle (hydrogen peroxide),
and he loves me!

By Cora









I love daddy because...
he helps me brush my teeth,
gives us candy,
he takes me to Bass Pro Shop,
he goes to work and coaches,
he tells jokes,
plays rough house with me,
and he loves me.

By Cade

Happy Father's Day Abuelo and Pop Pop

We love you both and are so thankful for you and everything you do for us! We are lucky to be surrounded by such outstanding men as role models!

Indiana in review

Cora asleep in a Cinderella ball gown. Some things just aren't worth fighting over!



Swimming and pizza with the Walter's boys!



Cora and Julian became fast friends!



Smiling with Gran and Pop.


CATCHING LIGHTENING BUGS! This activity was forced upon us by mom, cause she used to do it when she was little and we don't have lightening bugs in Georgia. She couldn't stand for us to miss out on this experience!

Cora riding Taylor the horse at the Shrode's barn. (She rode maybe 4 steps!)



Cade riding Taylor the horse at the Shrode's barn. He loved it!



Helmeted up and ready to ride!



Our Sunday best!



Cade with the world's sweetest cat, Bella.

Indiana, Oh Indiana!

So we are just about finished with a week of fun at Gran and Pop's house. The kids LOVE visiting here. It's all about them, as it always is with any of their grandparents! We've gone horse back riding, swimming, played with friends, eaten ice cream, and more swimming! Tomorrow we're going to the zoo and have another play date scheduled! They can't get enough! Then Friday it's life back to normal. Bummer!

Cora has done really well on her first week of maintenance chemo meds! She was really puny and didn't feel good the first 3 or 4 days after her LP last Tuesday, but around Friday she perked right up and has done great ever since. She just finished 5 days on steroids. Her appetite picked up a little, but it's a bit of a lower dose, so she wasn't as grouchy and hungry as before. (thank God!) She has to take a pill every night that doesn't seem to have too many side effects and on Tuesdays she has to take 5 pills at once and she just ate them in applesauce and did great! I think being here has been a great distraction for her.

Cade has learned to dive and Cora actually enjoys the pool (which is landslides better from last year!) Mommy has enjoyed having two other adults just DYING to do normal things for my kids like pour juice and help go potty! I could move in! I'll post pics when we get home!

MAINTENANCE!

Hooray! Yesterday we went to the clinc and Cora's counts were great! Sky high! So she went to Memorial today for her first maintenance round of chemo. She had a lumbar puncture and vincristine. Because the clinic is a little short staffed for anesthesia, we had to go to the hospital. Just being at a new place caused all sorts of drama for Cora, but we got through it! We will start all her new medication tonight including 5 days of the dreaded chocolate medicine (STEROID!), so I am sure in a few days our "steroid Cora" will be here. But no more chemo for a month! HOORAY! We go to the clinic in two weeks to check counts, but between now and then we are even going to go to Indiana to visit Gran and Pop for a few days! The kids are thrilled to go out of town! That is normal! We love normal!

On a sad note, I got a call from a girl that works at SCPS with me last night. Her next door neighbor who is 6 was diagnosed with AML (the other leukemia) on Saturday. Since Cora and I were at the hospital today we popped in to meet this sweet boy and his mom. He was in the same hospital room that Cora was in upon diagnosis and just walking in that room brought tears to my eyes. This little guy is precious. His name is Braden and he is really a sick little boy so please just keep him and his family in your prayers! They'd appreciate it!

Robotics

OK so Rob found a video on YouTube of a guy dancing robotics and Cade said, "oh I can do that!" Here it is!

Random Pics

Crutch!

Ok so I am pretty glad that we've reached the maintenance phase of chemo, because Cora has started using leukemia as a crutch, yes, that's right! And she's only 2! She had a friend over yesterday and they made a huge mess in her room.

Mama: ok guys let's clean up this mess.
(cora's friend, Marshall starts to clean up immediately, cora just stands there.)
Mama: Cora, let's see if you can help Marshall and I clean up.
Cora: Well, I just can't.
Mama: Yes you can, and you will!
Cora: I just can't.
Mama: Why not
Cora: Well, because I have a sickness and it's called leukemia!

Oh yes she did!...she said it! Needless to say, she found out very quickly that you can clean up even when you have leukemia. I sorta freaked out! This could be a problem! So now, Cora is going to be treated 100% like a normal kid and we're going to have to try to cut down on the cancer talk around here! Hopefully my only "medical" updates will be on chemo visits! She's really really feeling great! Lots of spunk, as you can see!

Movin on up!

Well, we just got Cora's counts today after her Monday visit. (The hospitals computers were down--talk about a problem!) And as I expected, they are creeping upward! Yay! ANC was around 700, not ready for the mall softplay, but good enough to get out a little. We begin "maintenance chemo" on Tuesday. She actually has to have a lumbar puncture and they are short on anesthesiologists at the clinic so we have to do it inpatient at the hospital. Yuck! Dr. Johnston went over maintenance chemo and it sounds like once we can get her ANC holding around 1500 we can only do clinic once a month! YAY! I love the clinic and all, but this sounds like a dream to me. We may have to go every other week just to get counts checked. She will be taking oral meds daily. He said her hair will begin to grow back soon, although it will look raggedy for awhile. As long as we can keep her well and fever free I think the worst is behind us! YAY again! He also told me she will finish chemo around January of 2011. That seems light years away. She will be 4.5, but at least there is light. Please continue to pray that her counts will stay up and that she will NEVER relapse! We NEVER want to repeat the last 6 months again! Overall, she feels great! In fact, the last few weeks this girl is spunkier than ever! In to everything! The girl requires less sleep than anyone else in the house! She TRULY wears me out! She's a mover, a shaker, a destroyer, and a fighter! I love it!