Laura loves cuddling with me. She randomly reaches for me, lays her head on my chest, and cuddles herself up. She seems to want time to stop; she is happy just to be close to me (Rob says she does it with him too). I don't remember any of the other kids doing this. I wonder if it's related to me being sick and not having energy to do activities with her that I did with the other kids. Whatever the reason, I love it. Although it does make it hard to get ready for work and she seems to have a sixth sense about when I am in a hurry and pick those times to want to cuddle.
The older kids do a great job of helping with Laura. The other day Laura fell asleep on one of our couches. One of the kids tucked her in, covering her with a washcloth.
So . . . catching up with what's going on with us . . .
Laura is 15 months old. She is starting to talk more (her favorite word right now is binkie). She has the cutest little impish grin and she loves making us laugh. She finally has enough hair for a small ponytail.
Eva just turned 3. She loves tutus and dresses and jewlery and make-up and purses. She is super cute and knows it. She is full of life and energy and fun.
Jack is 6. He is starting to read. He loves superheros and power rangers and heroes of all types (policemen, military, etc.). He is super sweet and loves to bring me flowers and presents.
Beth is almost 8. She excels at school without even trying, like a mini-Megan. She has more of a stubborn streak than Meg does though. She loves all things Dora and anything purple, as she has since she was a year old.
Kylie is 9. She loves superheros and sports. She announced to us a few weeks ago that she felt like a boy. Upon further inquiry, it was revealed that she thought that because she liked things traditionally liked by boys. We told her it didn't matter what society thought about something; she could like anything she wanted.
Megan is 11. She is somehow old enough to want to wear make-up (lip gloss and eye shadow), which we are not ready for yet. She just got off two months of being grounded for having bad grades. She wasn't bothering to turn anything in, which doesn't work very well in middle school. She is working harder now and doing much better. I was finally able to pull her out of school for her lunch date last week. Jojo joined us. We went to Central Market for lunch and to play on the playground. We timed it perfectly and the temps were in the low 70's.
Laura cuddling with Miss Jojo :)
Rob has made the shift to primary caregiver. He's still working, but as I work afternoons and evenings, he is the one who does things like help with homework and direct kids to do chores. He really loves it and we are looking forward to him being able to switch to part-time (hopefully only about 3 years away). Having considered private health care, we have decided not to have him quit as his company offers full benefits to those who work part-time. He does an amazing job balancing both working and taking care of the kids and me.
I have one week left of this quarter, although with my two internship quarters, the hours worked during the three weeks between quarters still count. I have four months left until graduation. Somehow my hours are pretty much where they need to be. I have no idea how that happened; I'm pretty sure it was an act of God. I love, love, love my job. Getting to work as a therapist is amazing! It can also be incredibly challenging, especially emotionally, but it is completely worth it. The icing on the cake though is working with Mark and James. They are two of my very favorite people and we have so much fun together. They have become two of my very closest friends. I love that we have really deep, emotional conversations and then a few minutes later we're laughing so hard we're crying. I couldn't imagine better people to work with. I feel so incredibly blessed to have Rob, James, and Mark in my life.
Despite the amazing blessings I have in my life, the past few weeks have been some of the most stressful weeks ever. Brittney got home from spending Thanksgiving week with her family and announced that she really didn't like how much time watching the kids was taking up and that she was moving out in a few weeks. She wants more of the life of a college student. It took us completely by surprise and we are now frantically scrambling to find childcare starting in January (I can get other sitters over Christmas break as high school is out). Hopefully we'll figure something out.
On top of the childcare debacle, I had another cardiologist appt a few weeks ago. I am feeling worse and am even more exhausted than I used to be. My cardiologist thinks it is side effects of the meds he has me on. He did another echocardiogram and it looked like my heart was about the same as it has been. He then sent me in for a MUGA scan, which is sort of like a CT scan. My dr didn't want to change my meds without knowing more about what was going on. They drew some blood, attached radioactive isotopes to it, then reinjected it, taking pictures that allowed them a much more detailed picture of what's going on. The good news is that the meds are preventing me from getting any worse. The bad news is that I am not getting any better. My cardiologist is starting me on a new treatment called EECP. It basically flushes out my heart and makes it work better. It usually has amazingly good results, but it is 35 hours of treatment. One hour a day, five days a week, for seven weeks. And the place where the treatment happens is 45 minutes away in the opposite direction from my office. So not only do I need to worry about finding childcare for work, I now need to figure this out too.
For some reason, my heart issues really got to me during the week between my first cardiologist appt and getting the results of the MUGA scan. Usually I can just deal with it and it may be annoying, but I don't stress out about it. I guess all the emotional responses I haven't had over the past 8 months caught up to me and came spilling out all at once. I don't know how I would have made it through without my support system. I have amazing friends :) I remember driving into Dallas, falling apart as I drove. I knew I couldn't walk into my group therapy session in my condition, so I called a friend. Even though we haven't seen each other in two decades, she knew exactly what to say and by the time I got to work (I teach the John School class on Tuesday nights), she had me laughing. Thank you Nikki. You are wonderful :) Rob, Jojo, James, and Mark also helped me deal with my emotions that week and I couldn't have made it through without them.
To add to the excitement, a few days after Thanksgiving we ended up in Urgent Care with Laura. One of her ears was sticking out and was really red and she had a fever and was super fussy. It turned out the lymph nodes behind her ear (I didn't even know there were lymph nodes there) were infected. They put her on antibiotics and over the next several days she got much better. The photo below has horrible lighting, but you can see how far her right ear stuck out compared to her left. It always amazes me that our children manage to keep coming up with medical issues we've never heard of. At least she's ok now and we caught it before it got worse :)
Add normal things like having to figure out how to buy Christmas presents for everyone (online Black Friday sales are awesome), having to work in a major project for school (I thought school work was done, but I was wrong), and being stressed about the holidays (I hate them, but try not to let the kids see that) . . . a nice warm straight-jacket in a cozy padded cell looks pretty good about now ;) I am so grateful for people like Rob, James, Mark, and Jojo and the support they give me. I could not make it through this if it wasn't for them.
