Irony

2 Mondays ago, I went to the post office to mail off Carrie's birthday package. On the card, I wrote that I wished more than anything I could be with her on her b-day, and had planned to write about the perfect day we could have had on the blog for a post in her honor.

Then on Thursday night, at 7.30, I got a call from my mom telling me my dad's leukemia had returned, and on Monday he would be admitted to a hospital in Denver for chemo treatment. By 9, I had purchased plane tickets for Oz and I, and spent the rest of the night frantically packing for an undetermined amount of time. There was a chance I would stay for the weekend, or maybe stay longer and send for the big kids (the idea of S and C on a plane by themselves makes me simultaneously freaked and thrilled. I know they they could do it, but do I really want to find out?)

I barely got to say goodbye to them. I kissed C early Friday morning but he didn't wake up, and when I went in to tell S I was going she smiled like she does when she knows I'm joking. Then she looked in my eyes and realized I wasn't. She was very mature and said she could handle being in charge and helping Amy with the kids and that she would be praying for Grampa. She's growing up so much, I can't believe it.

As luck would have it, Palmers had been living with us for the past 1.5 weeks while waiting to close on their new house, and then waiting while it gets painted. Amy was a real trooper to take on 2 extra kids, on top of being pregnant, watching her cousin's two kids all day, and her own three. So if you think about it, she was in charge of 8 kids (I'm counting the one in-utero) for over a week. She amazes me. She handled all the end of the year school festivities, birthday parties, and even offered to take my kids to their annual physicals but I drew the line at that. I should have made her take Calder for his Lyme disease blood test... I am NOT looking forward to the inevitable drama that will come with that event.

Travis and Enoch acted as Amy's lovely assistants, filling in where needed at such events like the Kindergarten picnic, C's birthday celebration at school (Enoch took C to purchase which ice cream treats he'd give to the class, the cousins put together the goody bags, and Trav went in to hand it all out and read C's favorite book to his class, missing work to do so). I emailed with C's teacher to make sure he was handling it all okay, and she wrote back that he was doing fine and didn't seem to mind that his parents weren't at the picnic because Amy and Enoch were there. My kids are so lucky to have a second set of parents around! So many other people here filled in too, taking my kids for playdates and to swim and letting S attend all kinds of birthday parties she had not been officially invited to. Never one time did Travis tell me I should come home. He kept telling me to stay as long as I needed, and assured me that the kids were great and doing fine.

So, in an ironic twist, on the morning of Carrie's birthday she picked me up from DIA with Nana, and in the backseat was the only person more social than Carrie, ready to bond with his cousin and attempt to maintain constant eye contact with me for the next week. We headed to Boulder and had time to do Tae bo and put the babies down for naps before Grampa came walking in from his golf game (upon learning he would be going to the hospital in three days, he made as many tee times as was humanly possible). I didn't want him to know I was coming, because he would have told me not to. So when he walked in and saw me in an all-too-familiar Billy Blanks pose, he smiled and said, "What are you doing here?"

Everyone celebrated Carrie's birthday that night with take out from the Cheesecake Factory. Saturday we hung out with Rand's family in Broomfield, and Sunday was a nice Father's Day dinner from which Dad, even though feeling fatigued from his low white blood cell count and the beginning symptoms of the leukemia, refused to let us do the cleaning up without him. Typical.

We have come a long way from the first time cancer entered our family. We are even able to make the occasional joke about it, such as at the end of Carrie's birthday party when we adjourned to the living room for Rand and Dave to give my parents blessings, and my dad quipped, "Well, that's one way to kill a party." We are optimistically hoping for another remission, though we know achieving it will be a long and painful road. If this remission is achieved, a bone marrow transplant is likely, which will also be long and difficult. This time around we have a better idea of what to expect from his treatment, which in some ways is better but in many ways worse.

Monday morning the mood changed dramatically, when Dad called the hospital and was given an arrival time of 1 PM. He was stressed and scared, which shook us all to see. He has always been the rock we all lean on in times of distress. He patiently waited in the hospital until Wednesday morning, when finally all the necessary testing had been completed and his body was ready for the first round of chemo.

It was a long week for all of us. Crosby developed a fever on Tuesday afternoon, and I was afraid to go visit my dad until I was sure I wasn't contagious. A virus at this point entering his system would be a disaster. When we visited him, we wore gowns and gloves and my mom and I wore face masks to be doubly sure we didn't infect him with anything, which made our visits rather hot.

When I went to say goodbye to him on Thursday evening, we talked while I gave him a massage. Then as I was preparing to leave, I told him how much I loved him and to stay strong. He told me my job was to take care of my family and "not worry about him." Yeah right. He also reminded me not to be thinking about him while I drove home; he was worried about me being sad and getting in a car accident. Today Rand told me that my dad apologized to him for "ruining his vacation." It's so true to his character that even when sick in the hospital, he worries about everyone else more than himself.

I got back to NY late Friday night, and snuck in to hug and kiss the big kids who I missed like crazy. I spent most of the night with Oz, who woke up every two hours screaming. As I rocked him through the night, I was reminded to enjoy every moment of my life, even the bad ones.

I love you, Dad.

If you'd like more regular updates on Gordon's condition, you can visit tglewis.blogspot.com.

The price

Turns out the price of our home is greater than just the purchase price. We've also had to donate:

-one fifth of a thumb that got drilled off (Dave)
-one sprained finger (Dave's brother)
-one sprained wrist (Dave's brother)
-one bloody gash in the leg from a hand saw (Dave)

Before:

After (taken at 1am in the ER):

10 stitches. Granted it would have been more, but about 2 inches of skin was too far separated to be stitched back together. So the Dr. went ahead and just cut that chunk of skin off.

When I asked Dave if he was ok as we sat in the ER for 3 hours, he said "I'm just mad that I haven't gotten home to eat my dinner yet."

The 2nd coming

Farrah Faucet and Michael Jackson in the same day? Typical Jackson move to try to steal poor Farrah's thunder.

In other news, there is some horrible smell in my mom's refrigerator that we can not isolate and eliminate. The offending smell surfaced Saturday and at this point, Sara, Carrie, mom, and I have all individually and collectively opened, smelled, discarded and personally interviewed each item in/around/under or on the fridge. It is truly maddening and will be the demise of us all if we don't find it.

Tonight we plan to move the fridge out and see if something or someone has died behind it.

I have some other pictures, too

Here are my pics from the shower, to prove that people (at least the guest of honor and Carrie and I) attended this event.

A new kind of shower

This post in long overdue. A few months back Sara and I hosted a 40th birthday party for our fabulous eldest sister - Miss Yah Yah.

Since there is nothing Laura loves more than chocolate, we decided the only logical thing to do was shower her with chocolate.

Thus...and new kind of shower was born - The Chocolate Shower! The party was great fun, and here are pictures to prove you wish you were there.

The Invite:



The Table:



The Chocolate:









I would kill for one of Sara's chocolate brownies right now which sadly did not get photographed. People also did not get photographed, although they were there. I was too distracted by the chocolate to take pictures.

Adios, Winnie.

Poor Scout.

She's been wanting a dog for YEARS. She's always been an animal lover, even when she was tiny. Plastic animals were her toy of choice... which was handy, because they were small and we could easily fit her whole collection in a little box in our tiny apartment. Every time she's asked me for a dog recently, my reply is either, "Not until Crosby is 3" or the newer one, "I'd rather have another baby than get a dog."

When our friends got a dog and were looking for a new home for their guinea pig, it seemed all Scout's dreams were about to come true. I geared up for having an animal in the house (not something I'm remotely a fan of) and for about a week, she was the world's best pet owner. That pig got more baths than it knew what to do with. It was fed constantly. It's cage was cleaned religiously, every few days.

Needless to say, this level of care did not continue. Travis and I began discovering Winnie didn't have any hay, or water. We began wondering if we were being party to pet abuse. We had discussions with Scout about this, and promises were made; charts created. And finally, guess who mostly ended up taking care of the guinea pig.

But the real problem was the allergies... Trav's allergies. They just kept getting worse and worse, the longer Winnie was in our house. Once it warmed up enough, we moved her to the garage... which at least meant we could play Rock Band again without Travis wheezing all night long, but by no means was a solution. So, I began in earnest looking for a new home.

I finally found one through the magic of Craigslist. Is that the greatest of all inventions, or what? I emailed back and forth with Winnie's new owner, figuring out a time we could drop her off. The new owners had a baby pig named Trixie that they thought was lonely, and the lady promised Scout could meet Trixie and be assured that Winnie was going to a great new home.

Fast forward to Tuesday, when was threatening rain. I loaded all of Winnie's supplies into my car and we took her to the address in Yonkers; definitely not the best part of a not super nice town. Trixie's owner wasn't home, and the guy who opened the door looked a lot like a white supremacist: shaved head, ripped jeans, tats all over, many piercings, and huge black combat boots. I made awkward conversation while we lugged all her stuff to their porch, where the kids talked to a black cat. We had heard a dog bark when we knocked, so I smiled and said, "Man, you guys really have a lot of pets! You must love animals!" and he grunted and said, "It's for the wife and kid. The only one I like is the rat."

Well. Calder jumped on that and before you knew it, he was talking about how he was dying to see the rat. The kids had already been told they'd get to meet Trixie, so what was the problem with meeting the RAT? The supremacist looked uncomfortable and said, "Uh... the rat is sleeping" while I tried to corral the kids into the car. As we walked down their driveway to where Oz was waiting in the car, I had one kid wailing, "BUT YOU PROMISED!! YOU SAID WE COULD GO IN AND MEET TRIXIE" while the other one was crying, "YOU LIED TO US! YOU SAID WE COULD SEE THEIR GUINEA PIG!" Oh boy. Things were not going my way. Apparently I've done too great a job of teaching my kids to not judge people by what they wear.

It all came to a climax when Calder angrily kicked some rocks which hit the car. I lost it and said, "I'm telling Dad that you did that!" and I snapped at them both to GET IN THE CAR, NOW. Finally, once they were inside I tried to explain that I didn't lie, but that the woman who had promised me that we could meet Trixie wasn't at home and it would have been an unsafe idea for us to go into that man's house. I'm still not sure they really get it, but at least we got out of there in one piece without having to interface with the rat.

So goodbye Winnie. And may I add... Good Luck.

To give you a taste...

...of how much work we have ahead of us.



Wish us luck.