The Servant's Quarters

Yesterday was Aidan's third birthday. Hard to believe that it was already three years ago that Rita did the unthinkable - gave birth to a son in our own bed. The place that I rest my head at night. Wow. I narrowly missed delivering my own baby. That was close. But the real harrowing part of the entire affair came after Rita and healthy, happy Aidan were hauled off to the emergency room by the firemen who actually carried out the delivery - THE CLEAN UP!

For those of you men who have not had the pleasure of your wife "dropping a punk" (that's an expression that I've just invented for unexpectedly giving birth to a baby in your own home) on the nice clean sheets of your bed late at night, I have a word of advice for you - make sure you're in the ambulance when it pulls away from the curb. Leave the clean up to someone else. If there's no one else who can do it, sell the house. If that won't work, invest in hazmat gear. Trust me on this.

Yesterday was an all around great day. I took the day off of work, and Aidan and I went to breakfast in the morning. (I do this with all the kids on their birthday, starting at age 3. So, this was the lad's introduction to the tradition of Birthday Breakfast with Daddy.) We had a great time despite the fact that our meal would seem pretty bland to the uninitiated. (We each had a bowl of oatmeal. I'm trying to watch my weight. I have no idea what his excuse was.) From there, we picked up the rest of the family and made a visit to our local Chuck E. Cheese for around 3 hours of token pumping, video game induced joy. That night, we had the usual cake feast and gift opening. Everything was fine, although there was a prevailing mood of grumpiness from the kids towards the end of the day. (Too much sugar or not enough sleep. Not sure which.)

Happy Birthday, Aidan! You are a great kid!!!

Here's some pictures from the big day -

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Aladdin Call Backs

Well, first disappointment of the evening. Liv just found out that the part she's been called back for is one of the Narrators. Not Jasmine.

It's no surprise. I mean, come on. There's really only one part on the show that all of the girls want. And it ain't the Sultan, baby. That means that with over four hundred kids trying out and most of them girls, it was highly unlikely that she'd be considered for the role, no matter how good she is. Jasmine just isn't a four foot nine blonde 12 year old. Especially with all those older, taller guys trying out for Aladdin. (Talk about the heebie jeebies.) A lot of the other girls would be much closer to Jasmine's type than Olivia is.

But that doesn't stop Liv from being a little let down. She was dreaming big. So was I. Sigh.

Oh well. The up side is that there have to be fewer rehearsals for a Narrator. I just hope she lands one is those parts!

This Just In....

Rita called Mom this afternoon. Unfortunately, she's not doing very well. She seemed to indicated that she is suffering from some nausea, but the anti-nausea drugs that she's been given seem to be helping. Also, she continues to be run down, weak, and very shakey.

On the bright side of things, Olivia got called back for Aladdin auditions. That means she's at least going to get a part in the chorus. Hopefully, she'll land a lead. I'm so happy for her. Call backs are from 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM tonight. (Last night, we were there just as long.) Looks like Ever After Productions is going to be running my life again for a while.

Evening Update

As I type this entry, I'm sitting in the dance studio at the Village Theater in Canton listening to a group of adopting actors audition their guts out for this Fall's performance of Aladdin. Liv of still waiting her turn, so I'm parked in here listening to some kids I know from previous productions and others I've never seen before. A few are really cute, some of those are genuinely talented, and must are really not good at all. God bless them. I remember the audition days quite well. The stress, the hope, the fear, the disappointment, the joy, etc. I wish they could all get parts.

On my way over here, I called my parents. Mom was asleep. Out cold from the chemo and the drugs she was given to relax her swing the infusion. (The impression I got from Dad of that she was quite anxious by time she made it to the doctor's office.) Dad was thinking of waking her up to find out if she was interested on eating. I advised him to let her sleep. So far, she's had no nausea, thank God.

I'm calling back later to see if I can catch her awake. More on that and the audition later.

Back Online

I'm back from my long and completely unplanned hiatus. My apologies for anyone who's been tuning in looking for updates on Mom. My absence stemmed from a couple of things, mainly the fact that last weekend I came down with the same stomach flu that I had had to clean up after the weekend before. It was pretty bad. I don't usually get sick, and when I do, it's not nearly as bad as it was a few days ago. I came down with the crud on Friday, which delighted my co-workers no end, I'm sure. I was finally able to return to work in the afternoon on the following Tuesday.

The only up side that I can see to the whole thing is that I was able to catch up on some backlogged reading while I was trapped in the bathroom in the middle of the night during those sick days.

But I'm sure you don't want to hear about that.

So, let's play a little catch up -

Mom is doing well. She still has some soreness, but she is healing up nicely from her surgery. Today is the big day that kicks off several months of chemotherapy. We all went to her orientation last week. It was supposed to answer our questions. Instead, it gave us more questions and apprehensions than we cared to deal with. Basically, chemo can affect your body in all kinds of nasty ways up to and including congestive heart failure. And there's no way to predict what side effects she's going to suffer. She is definitely suffering some pretty intense jitters. Prayers, please!!!!!

Mom is scheduled for dose #1 of chemo this afternoon at 1:00 PM. I'll post again tonight with another update.

In other news......

After years of watching our front porch rail deteriorate and the excessive vegetation in front of our house die a slow, agonizing death, we decided to do something about it. This past weekend, we crashed on the Front Porch project big time. First, we rebuilt the railing. This turned out to be much easier than we thought it would be. Aside from some spacers that I had to cut for the bottom of one portion of the railing, we had all the pieces we needed already. We glued and nailed all the pieces together and held them in place with straps while the glue dried.

Next step was to removed the dying evergreens that overshadowed the entire front of the house. I decided to give this a go on Sunday afternoon, thinking that I'd be lucky to remove one or two of the trees. I wasn't having a lot of success when Rita accidently discovered that the trees had no root support against the house. By pushing on that side, I had no problem bending most of the trees right down to the ground. That left the roots that had grown away from the house, which Rita cut with a saw while I moved the tree to give her different angles to cut from. We ended up pulling out all seven trees yesterday. And was I feeling my oats! I told Rita that I didn't know any other husbands who could rip trees out of the ground with their bare hands.

Next weekend - painting and getting new porch furniture.

Also -

Aidan's potty training with some success.

Tonight is Liv's audition for Ever After Production's version of Aladdin.

Ford is a scary place to work these days. After last Friday's announcement, I admit that I am feeling nervous. Please pray that my job is protected (or that God opens up a new job for me somewhere else if He doesn't want me here).

Less than two weeks until vacation time! Yes!

I spoke with Mom last evening. She was a little rough, but seemed to be doing pretty well. Rita had been over with the kids earlier in the day, and she said that she was surprised how great Mom looked after the surgery. She would have never guessed that Mom had been under general anesthetic hours earlier.

In short, the operation went very well. The shunt is in place, and there were no complications. After a few days of healing and getting back on her feet, Mom will be ready to begin receiving chemotherapy. She has an appointment with her oncologist later this week, and we expect the chemo to begin sometime next week.

In the meantime, she's getting ready. We talked last night about her getting the ball rolling on acquiring a wig, since we will certainly lose her hair during this ordeal. We're also preparing for Aunt Fran to leave us for a least a while as she and her husband, Dennis, go on vacation. (Special thanks to Fran for preparing Sunday dinner for me and the kids a couple of days ago. What a blessing! And it was so good! Pork and beef roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, and assorted trimmings. The kids and I (especially me) really appreciated it.)

Please keep praying. The next hurdle is that Mom will be able to tolerate the chemo. It would be such a blessing if the drugs cause little, if any, discomfort or side effects. Yes, that would be a miracle, and our God is a miraculous God.

Aidan just walked up to me while I was working on the computer, holding a bag of uncooked spaghetti noodles. He asked me to open the bag so he could have one to eat. (Now, keep in mind that this kid has thrown up everything I've given him today except for the popsicle that I let him have about an hour ago. I was seriously worried that he was going to become dehydrated. However, I'm relieved that he's managed to hold it down.)

My response to him was to say, "Nah, you don't want a noodle. How about another popsicle?"

Nope. He wanted the noodle. Nothing I could say would change his mind.

So I gave him a noodle.

Now, what kind of weird child would prefer an uncooked spaghetti noodle over a popsicle?????????

...of being sick and tired.

Actually, I can't claim that the word "sick" currently applies to me. It does, however, apply to several other people in my household. It started with Philip last weekend, who caught a stomach bug. Yuck. He passed it to Aidan, who still has it. (Trust me. He has it. And believe me, you don't want me to blog about what's coming out of him that proves it.) Rita and Olivia left this weekend to go to Higgins Lake for some quality time alone. On the trip up, they both started puking. Apparently, they were barfing all night last night and didn't get any sleep. (Now that's quality Mother/Daughter time.) Rita called today to tell me that Country Time lemonade in cans has provided them with some relief. With Isaac away at a Young Marines encampment in Ohio, I'm here with four boys, one of whom is introducing me to interesting new smells that I didn't know existed.

No, I'm not sick. But I am pretty darned bushed. Oh well, as a former pastor of mine once said, "Sleep is for the weak!"

By the by, I spoke to Mom earlier today, and she sounds great. Aunt Fran is at their house and will stay for several days. (Thank God!) They went out to eat again, and Mom seemed to tolerate it better. Monday is the surgery to install her shunt for chemo. Please pray that that goes well. I'll post something here to let everyone know.