A Bunch of Random Thoughts and Information All Rolled into One Post

1. OK, we have to start with this:

The little monkey looks pretty cute--and I only mean looks. Tonight his behavior was such that he was in his pajamas and ready for bed at 6:45pm. That should tell you something.

Anyone care to place bets on how long it is before he breaks these?

2. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated to St. Baldricks. All I have to say about that is we have the best friends and family. And strangers. Linda Wallace, I don't know if we've ever met, but thanks!

3. I should have better things to do, but I can't go any further without commenting on . . .J. Lo and Marc Anthony's choices of names for their babies: Emme and Max. What? Are they total fans of Dragon Tales? Maybe that show will be out of vogue by the time the kids are old enough to realize they're named after cartoon characters.

4. I don't think I ever said Happy Birthday to Eamonn on here. It was Feb. 17th. I grilled him steak for dinner.

But first he had to dig out the grill.





And then he had to suffer through a store-bought pie the boys chose for him instead of a delicious homemade carrot cake like he usually gets. Maybe next year.


5. Declan's school was able to take part in a theater program. They did two class plays:

The Cricket

He played a man who tries to trick the cricket.


And The Little Ant


He was a narrator.


Then he decided to be in the school play. Because, you know, we don't have enough after school activities going on or anything.


The play: Holiday in the Rain Forest


His role: Stone person 10. Seriously. He had two lines. He practiced every day after school for two weeks.


That's Declan on the far right. I like how Stone Person #9 looks like a werewolf.



Garvin and Tara graciously attended the debut:







6. I thought spring was here, but apparently I was wrong when 6 new inches of snow fell on Saturday night/Sunday morning.


Sunday, March 2, 2008



7. I have flossed my teeth 64 out of 64 days in 2008. I'm shooting for 365. I'm using up a lot of floss. I tried to take a picture of my own teeth to show you my pearly whites. But when I looked at the pictures, I realized that there are some yellow spots on my teeth you might not care to see. So I scheduled a dentist appointment instead. And after watching me try 153 times to take pictures of my teeth, Finn wanted me to take a picture of his mouth.


So here it is.





I always thought he had the cutest little mouth when he was a baby, sort of shaped like a bow.

Anyway, it's hard to take a picture of your own teeth.



8. Sometimes when I work, I watch TV. Tonight, I turned the TV on and was mindlessly watching for awhile when I realized I was watching Thomas the Tank Engine. Alone.

I Wish I Could Call in Sick

If it wouldn't expose me as a sniveling whiner, I'd call my mother and ask her to call the companies I work for and tell them I'm too tired to work tonight. And then she'd also need to call Declan's teacher and tell her I'm too tired to ice 50-odd heart-shaped cookies for the Valentine's Party tomorrow. I'm also too tired to go to the Valentine's party tomorrow. But I'm the mother coordinating the party, so I guess I should be there.

Why? Why? Why am I so tired? Because I spent last night in a hotel with Finn Rooney who persisted in bouncing off the walls until nearly 10 p.m. making it difficult for me to do my client work until after he finally fell asleep. Then he proceeded to snore, snort, flail and generally thrash about in his bed for most of the night so that when I did finally get to go to bed, I woke up every 3.2 minutes or so.

We went to Denver on Tuesday for Finn's bloodwork and IViG. It was cloudly in Eagle, but dry. By the time we made it to Vail, we were in a full-on snowstorm that lasted until Georgetown, which is typical. As we crested the last of the foothills of the Front Range and dropped down into Denver, Finn looked around and said, "Why is it spring here?" And it did look really funny to me, too, and it seemed bizarre to think that we got in the car and there were several feet of snow at our house and then we were getting out of the car and didn't even need coats. It was like a weather time warp or something.

Finn's counts are good: ANC = 2700. I can't remember if I wrote about this before, but we had his eyes checked in November because his chemo nurse felt like he was squinting. So I took him to WalMart and the doctor (but now I wonder, how qualified was this guy???) said he was fine. But Finn's squinting continued and his teacher even commented on it. So yesterday the oncologist checked Finn's eyes and felt he saw something that wasn't quite right. We were able to squeeze into an appointment at a pediatric eye place (I'm sure "eye place" is the technical term they prefer to be referred to as, don't you?).

Lo and behold, Finn does indeed have a problem with his eyes--astigmatism. The doctor said he felt this is something Finn would have had regardless and is probably unrelated to the chemo. Good--something I can finally not blame on cancer. I'm sure cancer is relieved.

So The Mighty Finn will be getting glasses. Depending on the moment, he is either happy or unhappy about this. Tomorrow, depending on the snowstorm that is supposed to come through here tonight, we'll go to Glenwood and pick out some glasses. I can't even picture Finn with glasses! He's very worried people with make fun of him, like Arthur's friends did in "Arthur's Eyes." Why, oh why did I show him that video yesterday at the clinic? Now he's all paranoid. I'd better to hide the episode of Little House on the Prairie where Mary gets her glasses and all the kids make fun of her. . .that is until she realizes Miss Beadle also wears glasses. I don't understand what difference it really makes because was Miss Beadle really that cool? I guess to Mary she was. And I definitely don't Finn to see the LHP episode where Mary's glasses start a prairie fire! He'll be out on the sidewalk assassinating ants with his glasses all summer long.

At any rate, after both clinic and eye appointments were finished, we would have been driving home from Denver in the dark, which just isn't my bag, baby. I hate to sound like a big wuss, but driving around in the wilderness where big things like deer, elk and bighorn sheep leap off cliffs at you and you wipe out trying to swerve on snow covered roads, well, it's just not my thing.

I talked to a very unhelpful young man at the American Cancer Society who claimed I had never left him a message on his voicemail and that's why I didn't have a hotel room, and I had to fill out a new release form (which I had never filled out to begin with) before he could make any phone calls to any hotels, yadda, yadda, yadda. . .I actually had to cut him off in the end and hang up on him. I know that sounds mean because the ACS has been very helpful in the past, but this guy was decidedly unhelpful and I was out of time to sit there and listen to him blather on.

I ended up making my own reservation and we stayed at a very nice Hampton Inn and Suites. When we got there, it was like the country cousins arriving in the big city. Finn walked in and was saying, "Whoa! Wow! Look at that!" And on and on. You'd think this child had never stayed in a hotel before let alone traveled internationally on multiple occasions. He ate dinner at the desk in the room, ate popcorn in bed and watched movies on the portable DVD player while I worked, and ate a gourmet breakfast of Sugar Corn Pops and a biscuit. He was so overwhelmed by his journey that he didn't know what to do with himself. What a letdown he'll face when he wakes up tomorrow back in his own bed.

Which actually sounds really good to me because the 50-odd heart-shaped cookies are still there waiting for me. Mom?