Just an update

This post is about nothing in particular, just an update:

Libby lost a tooth last night. I think it's her third tooth, but it might be the forth one. I've lost track!  She was pretty excited about it, and quite frankly, so am I. It's been loose for over a month and her breath has been terrible! I'm pretty sure the tooth was rotting in it's socket and stinking up her breath, but she has been too anxious about it coming out to pull it. And it hasn't been super dooper wiggly, so maybe it wasn't really ready to fall out. Finally, it came out! She was eating corn on the cob and it sort of got stuck in the cob and really loosened up. The next bite she took, it fell right out. It fell into her mouth and didn't get stuck in the cob so it didn't get lost.  She was super excited and ran to her room and put it in her tooth pillow right away. Before she went to bed, she checked to make sure it was all set up for the tooth fairy. We hoped that the tooth fairy wouldn't be too afraid of the fireworks to fly around. This morning, Libby found four quarters and one Sacajawea dollar coin in her tooth pillow! So exciting!

Bugs have been biting the kids at night and we are completely perplexed about what is going on. Gracie, Libby and Lexie are all waking up covered in big red welts. Nobody else seems to be getting them. The girls itch like crazy and look like they were quite the bug buffet. They don't have bedbugs and we don't have mosquitoes here, but something is eating my girls! I'm thinking we'll have to buy a can of Off and spray the girls before they go to bed.

Charlie and Libby took a Funk dance class. They had so much fun!  Dance class is nicely structured. Every kid in the class is participating at the same time, there isn't much in the way of waiting for your turn. Most of the class is participation time. And it's fun! Charlie did well in his first dance class. He listened, learned, and participated nicely. Such a well behaved boy! We're all very proud of his behavior.  He might enroll in a weekly dance class this fall. Libby certainly will, she loves dance class and she's very good at it!  The dance teacher wants her to move up to the classes for 6-9  year olds instead of the 3-5 year olds. She's close enough to age 6 I guess.

Gracie is healed up from her bike wreck!  We think; we really don't know how her skull fracture is doing but assume it is healing and doing fine. There is still a small bump on her forehead and slight bruising under her eye, so she has a little healing to do yet. She seems just fine though. The fracture in her wrist healed and she got her cast off. She enjoyed wearing her cast since it was comfortable and it brought her a lot of extra special attention, but she was pretty happy to get it off too. We still haven't fixed her bike because she wants to ride it again and I want her to heal up completely before she plows up the road with her face again.

All three kids are in swimming lessons this session. Libby and Charlie took swimming lessons while Gracie was still in her cast so they are on their second session now. They took "Level T" last session which is the Toddler class. It is set up for four students between the ages of 3 - 5. That was nice that they could be in the same class and they both did really well!  This round, I put them both in Level I.  The child must be 5 years old to be in Level I, and Charlie is still three years old but there was no room in any of the Toddler classes for him by the time I registered. I called the City and requested that he be allowed to be in Level I since it is basically the same skill level, just with bigger kids. The lady who heard my plea transferred my phone call to the pool and I spoke with a lifeguard there. The guy I spoke with remembered Charlie and asked when his birthday is and I told him it's in August and he said that was ok to put Charlie in Level I. So I told him, well, he'll be 4 in August, he's still 3 for another month. The guy was surprised but said that is still ok since Charlie did really well in Toddler class and looks like he is 5 years old already. Sure enough, he's doing great! He might even pass the class!  Libby is doing great too! They are both very brave little swimmers. Gracie is loving her class, she is in Level II. This year she is tall enough to stand up easily in the 4' part of the pool with her head above the water. That seems to make a big difference for her. She might actually pass to the next level too!

I've been sewing up a storm. Not anything special, just trying to use up my fabric stash with little projects. The small simple projects have been fun. I'm running low on zippers now, but I made a bunch of snack bags and larger wet bags.  The wet bags are great for cloth diapers and trips to the beach and so forth, really anything wet can be tossed in them. And I've been making hats for myself. I finally figured out how to wear a scarf so that it doesn't slip and slide and fall off: wear a cotton hat underneath. I made a bunch of them so that I can refresh my hat and match the colors to the scarves. I haven't been embroidering much, but I want to. My embroidery machine is giving me a headache. The colored thread goes on top and the bobbin thread is white, but the bobbin thread is showing on the top of the fabric more than the colored thread! So my embroidery machine is obviously having tension issues and I have not figured out how to fix it yet. I'm trying!

Keith has had shoulder problems for quite some time now, literally, months!  It's called Frozen Shoulder. It's very painful and limits his movement. Poor guy is having a hard time with it and so he went to the doctor and got a cortizone shot deep into the joint. It helped for a few hours and then he was back to having a lot of pain. So much for that!  He's been going to physical therapy weekly too, and it's helping but not much. The doctor then told him that he's an older guy now, over 50, and so he needs a colonoscopy. He's scheduled for that sometime later in the month, but I find it funny that because his shoulder hurts, he's having a colonoscopy. I don't think it'll help his shoulder much but I'm not a doctor.

One of our frankenputer laptops died. The other one is not doing as well as it should, so I expect it could die any day too. Who knows! But that is why there has been such a big slow down with the blog posts and posting of photos. I am hoping that Keith will get the kids a computer, an actual computer, not a laptop or a tablet, but a real sit at a desk computer. They need it for their homework for school; they can't use these half-baked frankenputers!  And then I'll be able to use the desktop for blogging and whatnot. Just have to talk Keith into buying or building one.

We all had the stomach flu. It wasn't pretty. It was awful! Libby and Gracie started it, and then I joined in. Keith had a terrible belly ache but he was able to contain himself. It lasted a few days for each of us and we were a mess! Lexie and Charlie survived the ordeal, but they had to take care of the rest of us and do all of the cleaning and nursing and all. Lexie was exhausted after a few days of providing night and day care. We're all better now and Lexie and Charlie never did get it, whew!

I ended up in the hospital for a day because of it. If I get a fever over 100 degrees, I have to go to the ER. So, I did. I hit 100.9 and couldn't get it under 100.5 so I conceded and did as I'm supposed to. I was terribly dehydrated anyway and they admitted me. I received 4 bags of IV fluid and lots of medicine of various sorts. I sure felt better when I was discharged, but I needed to still rest and hydrate when I got  home for a few days. I'm really not a fan of being in the hospital! But, they took good care of me and I thank them for that.

I did find out that my port needs to be adjusted. Which is another way of saying I have to be sliced open and poked around in again. The doctor has to fix my port because a stitch holding it in place is now poking out of me and bacteria could get in and infect the whole thing. According to the doctor, the problem is that I am too skinny. Well... in that one spot maybe! I'm not exactly happy about this, but I have to keep the port in until next May so I guess I better get it fixed. I don't know when the surgery will be, the surgery schedule lady that does a terrible job is the one arranging it, so I don't expect that it will be any time soon. 

I'm doing ok. I am going for all of my chemo and herceptin treatments. I'm dealing well with the side effects and my family is very supportive of all of my naps and lack of energy. They are all pitching in and helping me get through it day by day.  I just take it one day at a time, that seems to be the easiest way to cope with the cancer and treatments and side effects. I'm getting a lot of the expected side effects, but not all of them. I have a plentiful supply of pharmaceuticals to keep the side effects from getting the best of me, which really  helps. I'm halfway through chemo, only three more to go! My last chemo will be at the end of August, after that I'll only have to get herceptin infusions once a month to finish out the year and then I will start taking Tamoxifin (pills) for five years.

Lexie and Charlie's custody court date was moved to August. We really hoped the case would be closed in June, but they extended it for no apparent reason. She has full custody, but she is receiving "services" which are a giant pain in the ass. At her next court date, we hope she is awarded full custody and an end of services. She's so sick of having to take parenting classes and having the social worker "visit" all the time. I am sick of them inspecting our house and constantly telling me that it isn't good enough. I googled this health and safety program that they have Lexie doing, which is the home inspection protocol that they use too. I found a training page for it and it says that the social worker is supposed to find safety infractions so that the parent can improve and learn, and then the social worker can mark those items off as improved. They had stats and all sorts of information about how many parents they've helped improve the health and safety of their homes. The page I found listed some examples of infractions that could be pointed out including that bathtubs and sinks are drowning hazards. Well, no wonder our infraction list is ridiculous and impossible to fix! That's what their goal is! We don't have enough real hazards in our  home, so they have to find something, even if it is the most basic things. Now that I have a better understanding of what they are doing, I feel better about my home. Anyway, we're sure hoping that in August it is all over and we can go back to normal and stop worrying about what they will say next or when they will just pop in and inspect. It's nerve wracking!

Keith has arranged for a little get-away for the family. We're all going up to the mountains and stay in a cabin that belongs to a teacher friend of his. We get to get away and have a "camping" experience in the pine trees while still having all the comforts of a house! So nice! I'm excited to do something fun and not too taxing on my depleted energy supply. The kids can run around and collect pine cones or chase squirrels or something. It'll be fun!  And it'll be something to break up the boredom that the kids are experiencing. They are like caged squirrels right now; we must set them free in the woods!

I saved the best news for last:  Katie and Andrew are expecting baby #3!!!  We're super excited for them! And for us, we just love them and their boys so much. Can't get enough of the little guys! I told Katie that I can't help her in many ways, so I will help by naming her baby for her and then she won't have to worry about that task. I told her to have a boy and I shall name him Winston. I love it!  She doesn't, in fact, I'm having a hard time selling her on the name. It's the least I can do to help her out though, right? I've chosen the gender and the name, all she has to do is have the baby!  I might have to wait and see if the baby is a boy or a girl and let them choose the name. I'm not much help so far. I'll have to see what the baby needs and sew something adorable for little Winston (or whatever they name #3).

That's about it for the updates. In general, we're all doing ok and hanging in there but we all have issues. This isn't turning out to be a great summer, but there is enough good stuff in it to save it. I think we'll all welcome the fall though. It'll be nice to have this summer behind us and move on to better times.