Feeling Good, Nina Simone

Listen while you read.

We got great news from Mama's doctor yesterday. Her lymph nodes were clear and the mass on her thyroid is benign. She has four more chemo treatments (should take about 9 weeks to complete) which will begin in mid-may. Knowing that her treatments and surgery have done their job makes all of the pain and the yuck so much easier to bear. We are 'feeling good' right now.

My J.T. loves this song. He sings to it using a hand-weight for a microphone and some serious boy-uncoordinated dance moves. I need to videotape him so I can embarrass him during those crucial teenage years.

While we are thrilled with this news, today is an emotional day for us for another reason. My brother would have turned 44 today. It is most difficult on my parents, these milestones when we miss him the most. We will be together as a family tonight. My parents, brother and sister will go to the place where we placed his ashes and just be. Peaceful, grieving, comforting.... together.

Thank you for all of your support.

A Nice Clean Place to Play

It's only temporary of course. That's why I took a few pictures once Rob had picked up and neatly organized all the toys. I didn't take any photos of what it looked like fifteen minutes after these were snapped. Now the Spider-Man and Transformers are mingling with wooden blocks and legos. Dora is having tea with a one-armed super hero. Trains are hopelessly derailed and the Dr. Seuss books are interspersed with Thomas the Train tales.

They seem to prefer it in its natural state of chaos. Actually they seem to prefer everything in chaos. It dements me. I love that phrase Mary.

Snip Snip

Abby has been using child-safe scissors for going on 2 years now. We've never had an incident of cutting anything except paper. Until now.

Abby comes to my office on Thursday afternoons. I always let her have her scissors and some scrap paper to cut up into however many little tiny bits she wants. She loves it and it frees me up to get a little bit of actual work done. While I was doing a little data input Abby managed to capture my undivided attention by saying:

"How do you like my new haircut?"

My heart stopped for a moment and in the millisecond it took me to whip my head around I was envisioning months of bad mullet grow out. Indeed there was a small pile of little blond curls on the floor. But she just snipped the ends off a few inches, nowhere near the roots. Thank the Lord. In fact, it curls under and you can't even tell she looks any different. So she still has all of this:

Double Dare You

I have been dared, prodded, poked, nudged by the lovely Soozadoo to post a picture of myself on my blog. Check out Post Secret this week to see why. We Moms really don't like to be in photos do we? But what message is that sending our sweet children about confident women?

Under the Bed

The rumors are true. A bogeyman does live under the bed and he likes to hoard things.

I cleaned out from under our bed today and found the following:

7 socks (none of which matched of course)
15 action figures (one of whom was missing a leg)
1 hair bow
1 1/2 pairs of shoes
5 books
a clothes hanger
a black piece of plastic of undetermined purpose
3 cheezits who were well beyond the five second rule
a scuffy looking orange jelly bean

Isn't it strange how the majority of the things under OUR bed belongs to the kids?

*A big thanks to Soozadoo for the header look. Isn't it gorgeous?!

Not Fabulous

is this online Scrabulous (Scrabble). It's kicking my arse six ways to Sunday. I'm not gracious in defeat.

I play the solitaire version versus the computer robot. Yeah, yeah... robot my Aunt Fannie! More like a freaking dictionary! I get NO VOWELS. Did you know it's quite difficult to play scrabble with no vowels?

Okay sometimes I get vowels. But then the "robot" (ahem.... CHEATER) puts out words like "poyou" and "gien". Is "nidus" really a word? What about "qaid"?

Stupid Scrabulous doesn't have an easy version. I like me an easy version. One that I can beat handily. It's good for my self-esteem you know. Losing by 200+ points is NOT good for my ego! If I need my ego bashed, I'll let my kids do it, thank you very much. At least they'll offer kisses and hugs later instead of giving me a lovely little green box that says: "Robot has won game by 236 points". I think there is an implied "moron" at the end of that message.

Q anyone? I have the U, E, A, S, and Y. Why can't I have the Q?!

Happy Easter

Momma and Abby after the egg hunt.


Abby all dressed up in her Easter finery.


J.T. (who doesn't want his picture taken.... because ties "aren't cool").


The beginning of the chocolate bunny massacre.


And a bloomer shot. Because nothing is quite so precious as a little girl in her bloomers.