Routines

I'm finding it harder and harder to do this same routine everyday, especially now that radiation is done. It almost feels like the rigidity in my schedule is gone now that radiation is complete, so every day I "play" with the time I need to leave for the nursing home.

Thursday was a tough morning...Micah woke up screaming "Mommy!" around 6:00 am...just as I was starting to fall asleep. I don't know whether he had a nightmare or if he was hurt, but he was loud and scared, and I needed to go upstairs and sit with him. After 30 minutes, I realized he was not going to fall back asleep. I decided to bring him into our room - I was hoping that sitting in the dark and cuddling with us would encourage him to sleep...but no such luck. Instead, he woke the baby up early, and DH eventually had to take Micah downstairs for an early breakfast.

Micah had preschool again today, and we ended up sending him with Megan. DH had a work function, and I planned a class with Maya (and our cousins Jodi and Layla, and our friends Ellen and Abigail). Maya and I met Jodi and Layla for an early lunch first at 11:00 to catch up, and I would have had to leave preschool a bit early to make it there on time. Since I was afraid of Micah crying and becoming inconsolable if I tried to sneak out of preschool 15 minutes early and swap with Megan, I decided it would be easier for him if Megan took him instead.

Maya had a great time at class! I think she is a little young still for class to mean anything to her yet, but the singing and the toys made her smile. I think Micah was about 6 months old when I enrolled him in his first class, so perhaps next semester I'll start Maya in a regular class. After class, Ellen had to run to pick up her son, Max, and Jodi and I stopped for a cupcake.

After class, I got in the car and headed to the nursing home, but it was almost 2:30 when I finally arrived. My mother was supposed to be in therapy, but when I got there, the therapist informed me she was unable to find my Mom at 2:00 when she went upstairs. I sat with her for a bit and reviewed different equipment options, and then my parents walked through the door. I guess my father took my mother for a walk and the therapist was unable to find them. It was too late for therapy at that point, so we all went upstairs.

Mom continued to sit in her chair for a few more hours. We talked, we looked for her ipod (it went missing again yesterday, and we still can't find it). Mom asked me to flip a glass upside down (my grandmother used to tell us that if you turn a glass upside in your cabinet when you lose something, you'll find it), so I sent DH a text to flip one over. Hopefully, the glass will help us find Mom's ipod tomorrow.

I called SIL to wish Peyton a Happy Birthday, but she was sleeping. While I was on the phone, SIL's brother and sister-in-law came by to visit Mom. It was so great to see them! They stayed and chatted with Mom for about an hour, and we had a great visit. They couldn't have come at a better time...Mom was upstairs, dressed, in her wheelchair and feeling great.

After they left, we took Mom back to her room and my father headed home. I spent the afternoon trying to deal with getting her blood test results faxed over to the hospital. Apparently, her platelets have dropped again (down to 62,000 from 110,000), which is a normal side effect of chemotherapy. I spoke to her medical oncologist, and he said their goal is to keep her platelets over 50,000, so I believe we just need to watch and wait. She will need to continue getting her blood draws, and they will not be able to start her monthly oral chemotherapy until here counts recover. What concerns me more now is that my mother is also anemic again, and I'm not certain if anyone is monitoring that. It was such a severe issue a few months ago, and I'm concerned again. I gave my father a copy of the blood work, and he will be having my mother's hematologist review the results in the morning. It may be that my mother will need another iron infusion again, too, but I hope not.

I finally left around 5:30 - a short visit for me today. I made it back just in time for our meeting with the architect. We now have 2 bids from 2 different contractors, and we need to choose. We thought we had already committed to one of the contractors, but our architect decided to solicit a second bid from our original contractor (whose price kept increasing during the planning phase). Both contractors are good, and their bids are competitive. One of them is more likely to function on time, and the other is likely to be a little less money. Both will do good work. I kind of feel obligated to one of the contractors (since we did tell him we planned to go with him and that the job was his), but we have not signed anything with either one of them yet. Either way, one of these contractors will feel screwed, and I think our architect might have handled this situation badly with both of them.

Micah was very funny tonight with our architect. He kept pointing to his shirt and talking, and the architect asked me what Micah was saying. I listened for a minute and finally realized that Micah was saying "there is boo-boos." Our architect had a shirt on with several snapshots of Renaissance art, and a few of the paintings had exposed women's breasts, and Micah was just simply pointing out that the women on his shirt had "boo-boos." I couldn't stop laughing...Micah sure does love to identify body parts!

As you can see from the naked doll in the last picture, Micah is still enjoying undressing the doll and putting her diaper in the diaper pail: