dead sprint to my babies

It takes less then one second for me to go from sweet dreams to a dead sprint when I hear Maddy cry out in the middle of the night. She falls out of bed from time to time, and I'll rush in to see her on the floor, totally confused as to where she is, why she hurts and what's going on. I sweep her up in my arms, cradle her, give her kisses and send her back to sleep. Guess what..I love my girls!

sisters

Charly is learning to read and we've been working on sight word flash cards. Tonight Maddy held up the cards and Charly read them. Any time I see my babies bonding, it brings me so much joy. They'll need each other in this world. They'll need to hold up much more then flash cards..it's a good start.

driving through the debris of someones life

On our way back from Long Island yesterday, everyone fell asleep in the car leaving me to drift off into my own thoughts for the last hour or so of the trip. Just as we were about to exit the mass pike, there was a traffic backup. I could see the blue lights reflecting off the semi in front of us, so I knew we weren't far from the accident. As we inched our way along, I imagined all the scenarios that could have caused the delay. It was exceedingly windy and there was more then one time when I tapered back on my own speed for fear of drifting all over the road. We rolled up to the scene and there it was, a mid-sized sedan, flipped over on the hood. A man stood next to the mangled vehicle with an industrial sized broom raking the glass out of our way. I can't imagine anyone walked away from that wreck uninjured. As we drove past the scene, the papers and books that were once packed in this persons life were now in a disorganized mess all over the highway. Loose papers were caught in the eddies of the fast moving cars, cars trying to make up in speed for the time they lost rubber necking someone elses disaster. There were text books ripped apart, all kinds of personal effects strewn about. We literally drove through the debris of their life. All I could think about was the phone call that had to be made to some poor family member. We just never know what lies ahead, what paths we'll cross, when we'll be lucky and when we'll be the subject of phone calls that rip people right out of time and stamp them forever in one startling unmovable frame.

generosity

I am blown away on almost a daily basis by peoples generosity. It's humbling and also speaks to the gravity of this situation. Cancer sucks..big time. I simply can't believe that it's powerful enough to rip families apart, to leave bottomless pits at the center of their hearts, to steal away time from even one unfinished life. I really f'cking hate cancer. We have to stop it, we have to try. People seem to get that and are supporting us in ways I could have never imagined before. It's not just the outright donations, but the wholehearted expressions of support that make this whole mess a little more tolerable. I'd like to give a giant thank you to all of you.

Miss Maddy is still little

9th percentile height. She's a little itty bitty girl with a smile, laugh and heart so big that there are no charts to guide us for comparisons. I don't know that I've met a three year old with more personality and a more developed sense of humor then this child. She was cracking jokes at the dinner table before she could talk. I'm the luckiest mother in the world to have these kids. I'm the luckiest person I know in general.
Kinda makes me laugh when people walk away from an interaction with me thinking almost audibly how happy they are to not be me. Well folks, I wouldn't switch lives with anyone. I was getting my car fixed the other day and the man whose job it is to sit in a folding chair in front of a window and wait for cars to roll up in order to perform his full service duties started to make small talk with me while I was waiting. He told me about his family and how they all die young because of alcoholism, how he's single and childless, how he sits in a folding chair for his career. That man was counting his blessings when I left, he was so grateful for his life, for the fact that he would live long enough to die from the bottle, that he would be around for at least a couple more years to make a good and deep impression on that chair. He left thanking god that he wasn't me. I guess we have that in common. I don't in any way want to disparage him or anyone else based on the merits of their job, or lack thereof. I'm just using him as an example of why we shouldn't pity people, those people just might pity you too.

at home with an angel

Charly has walking pneumonia. I feel like mother of the year dragging her down to DC and back over the weekend to watch Ted run the Marine Corps Marathon (he did kick ass in it though and came in the top 1% with a sub 3hr!!!). Oh well, now I get to work from home while she snuggles next to me. Is it wrong to be secretly happy that she has to stay home? As she falls asleep under the same covers as me, I can feel her rubbing her little feet together just as I did as a child.

Clean scans close call

Last week I had my CT scans. In walks the doctor with a mixed expression on his face. "The scans look good, except......." oh wait, was I supposed to listen after that? All I wanted to hear was "look good". I did not want any except, any but, any thing else. "except we'd like to take a look at this spot on your liver". Eh? Spot? Like the kind my dog leaves everywhere? He showed me said spot in the current CT and the report from back in August when it was originally found, the note that said, "Spot should be looked at by MRI"..in August..it's October. I wasn't terribly happy with this, and Ted was pretty convinced that the ball was dropped because the doctor was going on vacation the next day and decided it could wait. My spot in my liver could wait. Well, I guess it could. A couple gruelling days later, I had the MRI and the results say right there, no evidence of metastasis. The MRI saw my spot just fine too, the tube however has designated it "nothing of concern". I always thought liver spots were something I'd get on my arms when I was much older...