what a rose tells my nose

dear little pumpkin,

happy first halloween. you went to daycare today in a little pumpkin suit with a leafy green hat. your teachers loved your costume.

daddy got home on friday and is doing well. he's been very tired and resting a lot, but every day he feels a little bit better. he has been going for walks every day and is now able to walk for a good distance--i would guess about half a mile or maybe a little bit more.

your auntie elta is gone and uncle jogr is here now. he has been doing lots of cooking for daddy, very nutritious and tasty meals.

i took you for our usual afternoon walk today. on the way home, tired, i stopped to smell a yellow rose. it revived me.

what a rose tells my nose: this moment, right now, is okay.

worn out, tired, dragged down. but elta's here.

dear booey,

daddy had a fever on saturday night. we had to go to the emergency room. i got you out of bed around 12:30 am. kast met us at the hospital, took you home, and put you back to bed.

i stayed up all night with daddy at the hospital. he had a ct scan that showed a large abscess near his liver and another one near his pancreas. he was admitted to the hospital and today he had the abscesses drained. it was a very painful procedure, but he is on the mend.

i have been unbearably tired after staying up all night in the emergency room and then coming home to you just when you woke up. after feeding you and getting your cousin teja to come over and stay with you, i went right back to the hospital.

last night i was hoping for solid sleep, but you woke up crying three times. it was hard for you to be woken up in the middle of the night and go home with kast. all night long you called for mama in your sleep. then when i left the next morning again you took it hard. so you needed some extra mommy time. when you woke up crying last night i was too tired to think or even look at the clock, so i just nursed you each time whether you needed it or night. it only occurred to me afterward that i could have just calmed you and gone back to bed.

you are in the middle of a big growth spurt. pulling yourself up, eating a ton, and sleeping hard. you have started taking some formula each day, which is a good insurance policy amidst all this chaos. now i can stop worrying about making enough milk for you. especially if i can't pump enough some days.

your auntie elta is visiting for the week. she is helpful in every way. she makes you smile and laugh. and she vacuums, too.

a yummy oatmeal recipe

dear snuggie,

daddy is home and doing well and i am terribly relieved. but let's leave it at that. i want to tell you about oatmeal. it's really good for you. here's a recipe you might enjoy making for yourself one day.

no-sugar, super-healthy oatmeal
-1/2 c. rolled oats
-1 c. water
-1/2 jarred peach (chopped) with 1/2 c. liquid (juice sweetened)
-2 T. dried fruit (chopped if needed; apricots or figs are very good)
-2 T. chopped raw unsalted almonds (or other nuts)
-cinnamon to taste
-unsweetened soy or nut milk

put oats and water together in a saucepan. bring to a boil, then cover and simmer until thick. in another small saucepan, heat peach liquid, peach, and dried fruit. add fruit mixture to oats. add cinnamon to taste. top with unsweetened soy or nut milk. enjoy!

daddy did great

dear crawler,

daddy was very brave going into surgery today. the surgeons were able to get all the detectable cancer in his liver. they did not find any other cancer outside the liver. for the first time in months i feel really, truly hopeful.

tonight daddy is in intensive care. i am home with you now and will go back to the hospital tomorrow morning after i drop you at daycare.

your cousin teja took to you and from daycare today, and you had fun with her. i thought you might miss me when you woke up and i wasn't home, but when teja came into your room this morning you just laughed.

rotten

dear baby bear,

we all got really sick this week. last time i wrote i mentioned that you had vomited all over me. remember? you didn't seem to be feeling bad at all, so i wasn't even sure if you were sick, but i got the bug monday night and daddy got it on tuesday. i can't remember the last time we were so sick, and daddy and i have never been this sick at the same time in the 14 years we've been together.

still, thursday morning we showed up at the hospital for daddy's pre-surgery appointment. daddy had his ekg and his xray and his chat with the anesthesiologist, and then we were told that dr. b and dr. w wanted to see him. daddy had called dr. b the day before when he was so sick, to see if there was anything he could take for his bad headache that would be safe before surgery, but he'd never heard back.

we knew that they wanted to see daddy to find out how sick he was, and to see if it would be safe to operate. what we didn't know was that they had looked at one of his scans again--for some reason they missed this one the first time because he had two scans within a couple of weeks--and determined that there are more spots on daddy's liver than they'd thought.

earlier they said there were three or four spots, but now they are saying it looks like about six of them. doctor b. told us that if dr. w opens daddy up and finds there are more than 6 spots, he probably would just close daddy's incision without touching his liver and they would start in with chemo instead in a month or so after daddy has healed. that was some unsettling news. then we saw dr. w, who postponed the operation until tuesday because of the stomach bug. that part was better news, because daddy was in no shape for that kind of trauma to his body.

your auntie maja is her--she was already on the plane before we knew about the delay--staying at a motel for another night or two (just to be on the safe side). she fed you your dinner tonight while i took a very short nap.

daddy is feeling a lot better and gave you your bath tonight. i have a cold now. i still feel pretty rotten and i'm going to bed.