Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a pretty quiet and lazy morning (where I started working on some of Logan's birthday party favors!), caught a new flick at the theaters in the afternoon (The Good Dinosaur - we all loved it!), had a nice dinner together in the evening before settling in to watch another movie at home (MIB3, Logan has been on a MIB kick lately)! :)

Hope everyone had a great holiday with family and friends yesterday!

Day 1, Cycle 5

Yesterday we started another maintenance cycle in Callum's chemotherapy program. We have a (long) week of steroids to administer (and deal with) - yesterday was a day at the hospital full of Dr visits and vincristine via IV. He did fantastic through it all! He's become such a champ with his port access these last few visits - he now tells the nurse he will count to 3 for her before she pokes him, which seems to actually work quite nicely. :)

His counts have continued to risen since the neutropenic episode about a month ago so that is good. And with a week on steroids this week they should go through the roof.

We're all still fighting a bit of a head cold, at various stages, but hanging in there. The boys are both off school all week which makes things a little easier and more relaxed at home. Thankfully we should have plenty of movies, couch snuggling, and food around this week to appease Mr. Callum's mood swings. ;-)

With a full heart

I happened to walk into our kitchen tonight and noticed my older son hanging out on his own, reading a book. I walked back into the TV room to grab my phone because I couldn't NOT capture this moment.

Love this little - now not so little - guy of mine. :)

Way to go Mom!

Callum was explaining to me earlier today about how much this other kid in his class bothers him, "he's mean and follows me around all day." (sadly, it actually sounds like the other kid just doesn't have a lot of friends and really likes Callum, but Callum isn't into the smothering).

So, I told Callum, well, if you really don't want to play with him, then you should just tell him that.

Callum got extremely offended and disgustedly told me:  "Mom! Then *I* would be the mean kid at school!!"

Well shit, I guess that advice just backfired.

Monkey bread!

'Tis the season, and two little rascals in this house know it! 😝

Minion has returned!

(I forgot to post this last week - but I composed it last Thursday...)


Over a week ago, we found Minion was missing. We aren't exactly sure how he got out but with all the workers coming and going and doors and windows left open, I guess we shouldn't have been too surprised. I thought we were keeping a good eye on him but clearly not! And with the trauma of just moving, he was more skittish than usual.

Where we live now has a fair amount of wildlife. I discovered a family of 5 raccoons in our backyard last week late at night, scouring the place for food no doubt. We have deer galore, possums and skunks. And apparently there are mountain lions that will sometimes venture into the neighborhood. So between all of that and it being a new location, we thought Minion was certainly a goner. :(

Last night, Jon was checking out some of the progress in our back rooms and heard a faint cat cry from outside. We went back to look and sure enough, there was scared and cold little Minion perched on the back corner of the fence, crying out at us. As soon as he saw it was us, he jumped down and we brought him inside.

In between his constant gobbling of food, he'd take a moment to walk around our room and rub up on us, the furniture, even the dogs!! It seemed he was just as happy (and relieved?!) to see us, as we were to see him.

Phew!!!

It's raining, it's pouring!

We are actually getting some decent rain this morning!

Snapped a couple of pics while we walked to the bus stop - these boys of mine sure are growing up!

Homework!

While Callum's LP went just fine on Monday, his counts came back pretty low and he's neutropenic. :( The bummer of this news means we have to stop chemo at home (until his numbers rise), and because we already know he's fighting something, we're keeping him home from school this week too.

The school has been really great - the teachers are sending pictures throughout the day, each day, of Callum's monkey (of the Monkey in my Chair program) and classmates. And each of his classmates made him get well cards that we received and had fun reading yesterday.

Logan has been helpful in acting as the liaison between home and school - carrying Callum's library books to school to return and bringing back new ones to read, or homework to work on.

Today was a great opportunity to work on an activity sent home, since the cabinet maker was monopolizing the TV room anyway (he's working on installing new cabinets for us). Callum and I worked on his monthly calendar, where the kids practice tracing the letters and numbers (filling in the missing ones on their own) and coloring the numbers with a pattern (this month it's "AAB"). They then get to draw a picture for the month - and this time it was of a turkey. He really enjoyed the activity and was very proud of it at the end (although not interested in giving me a good smile for the camera!).

Not to be forgotten, Logan is an expert at his homework these days, usually finishing it in mere minutes, before he trots off to his bus stop for school in the morning. I was really impressed with his idea for his math/word problem, and thought the subject was pretty funny (and so telling of how little boys' minds work!). :)

Cycle 4 (of 7). Dose 6 (of 8).

For the most part, we just keep going at it, day after day, week after week, month after month, on the same routine we need to follow during maintenance. I don't really take a moment to see the woods for the trees, because really, our lives are usually dictated by one lab result from another.

But every once in awhile, it's nice to take a breath and look at the bigger picture.

We're currently in Week 14 of Cycle 4 in our maintenance program. Every cycle is 16 weeks long, so we're almost done with this cycle. And Callum has 7 cycles total, so we're over halfway done with his maintenance cycles. :)

As for these lumbar punctures, he gets a total of 8 doses throughout maintenance. Today's is #6. Pretty cool to think we're rounding the corner!

He was a champ this morning. Totally relaxed, playing on his iPad all morning while we waited for the procedure team to call us in. His port access was a breeze - the nurses were great and he was super brave. He went under without any complications (I can't remember if I blogged about our last time here but when he went under he starting choking and gasping for air and I had a mild heart attack as it felt like my baby was dying right before my eyes).

Now I'm waiting for the call to come back and sit with him in post-op while they monitor him as he snoozes, until he wakes and starts asking for something to eat and drink. ;-)

Trick or Drink!

Boy, does our new 'hood know how to party!!

There was somewhere between 500-1000 kids (no joke!) out trick or treating last night, along with a number of house parties for the adults to stop and grab a beer or glass of wine as we walked from house to house.

The community also decorates one of the walking paths up (pretty spooky I might add) as the "Haunted Path". Which is pretty benign and quiet early on the evening (when we first walked down it) but gets darker, spookier, and much scarier (with older teens hiding in bushes ready to freak the living shit out of you) as the night wears on!

I was so glad Callum was feeling better and up for trick or treating. He lost steam an hour or so in, so he and Jon headed back home while Logan and I (and the Cables family who came up to spend the weekend with us) charged on for another hour or so. All the kids had a blast. Callum told me several times throughout the night, that it was "the best Halloween ever!!" which I was really happy to hear (I'd been feeling pretty bad about him having to miss the parade and celebration at school).

Hope everyone else had a safe and Happy Halloween!