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.

a few things about you

dear monkey bear,

you are growing up right before my eyes, changing every day. last weekend you figured out how to get back into a sitting position from your tummy or your hands and kneew. i noticed it on sunday morning. i had left on your tummy in the living room for a few seconds, and when i came back in you were sitting up. i did a double take, but you were nonchalant about it. no big deal, ma. except that you kept doing in again and again, so i knew you were proud of your accomplishment. i forgot to mention your new skill to your daycare teachers on monday, and when i went to pick you up they went on about how all day you kept demonstrating your fine new skill.

this morning you really put me to the test as i tried to change your diaper. you would not sit still. i finally stood you up and held you in one place as i got the diaper positioned around your bottom, then laid you down to quickly fasten it up before you crawled off again. afterward, i gave you some positive reinforcement with a big smile and a round of clapping. you surprised me by clapping right along, as if you'd always been able to clap your hands. you continued to clap your hands all day just for practice, and also when something pleased you. (you clapped for daddy after he finished playing you a song on his guitar.) you are really going to floor your daycare teachers on monday with that one.

a few more things about you:

-you like apples, pears, spinach, carrots, sweet potatos, winter squash, summer squash, lentils, and various concoctions made from these things--like apple with blueberry, pear and raspberry, spinach and potatoes, etc.

-you only like pureed baby food so far, nothing chunky; you have spit out the banana mush, hard boiled egg yolk, and mashed avocado i've given you.

-you still don't have any teeth.

-you love plain yogurt mixed with pureed fruit, but you've only been eating it for about a week and you've developed a skin rash on your face, so we'll probably need to take a break and try again later.

-last night you ate a good dinner, had your bath as usual, then nursed for a long time and drank a lot of milk. you were out, and when i put you on my shoulder to burp you, you made a funny gurgling noise. then you heaved all that warm milk and baby food all over both of us. you didn't seem to feel sick; right after throwing up you smiled and laughed. i had to call daddy to change you while i changed myself. it was a lot of puke for someone so small. really, it was a lot.

-daddy sent me a message on my cell phone last week. he sent me a picture of you wearing your sunglasses, and this message: "i love him. i love him. i love him."

turning corners

dear snooky,

well, daddy didn't have his surgery. it got rescheduled for october 4 because the cancer is growing again and the doctors decided to do a bigger operation. they are going to take out the whole right side of his liver and a little bit of the left side, too. daddy will be in the hospital for at least a week, and it will take about two months before he feels like himself again. after daddy has recovered, he will start chemo again for six months. so we have some hard times ahead.

i wish i could say that daddy and i have been spending a lot of quality time together, but the truth is that i have been working very hard on a project for work and i haven't had much time for anyone but you. as soon as i've put you to bed and have had a bite to eat, i've been going upstairs to the office and working until late at night while daddy watches tv and falls asleep on the couch. but now my project is done and i am going to spend as much time with the two of you as i can. the day before daddy's surgery, we'll drop you at daycare in the morning and then spend the whole day together, just the two of us, for the first time since you were born.

you are sleeping right now, very peacefully. oblivious to what is going on.

you have your own agenda. today you managed to move yourself all the way from the living room to the kitchen. you don't crawl, exactly. a little bit of crawling in reverse, maybe. mostly you scoot and roll, but it seems to be working for you. it seems to be a lot of fun for you to be able to get places on your own now.

this morning it rained. there's been a little nip of fall in the air. we are turning corners, little one. we'll find out together what's around the bend.