Crunching Numbers

In light of the financial crisis Michael talked about here, I thought I'd put Andi to work today.

Chili's for Dinner

Today, Chili's is donating 100% of its proceeds to St. Jude's Research Hospital. While this is not the hospital that treated Joshua, it is the place where his treatment plan was developed. And by the looks of Joshua these days, it is a fine plan indeed! So, I will be nudging Michael to go out to eat tonight and I hope to see you all there. If you go, make a Chili's in Joshua's honor. Or go here and make one from home. Happy eating!

(HT: Renee)

Ee Aww

Andi has learned only a few words so far. She uses sign language regularly, but the actually words are not quite as quick. So, the other day when Joshua came out of his room riding a stick horse, you can imagine my surprise to hear Andi stand up and yell, "EE AWW!" She ran to get the cowboy hat in the playroom and continued yelling, "EE AWW! EE AWW!" I wasn't quite sure what she was saying until Joshua starting yelling, "YEE HAW" right along with her. Now, every time Andi sees a horse or hears Old McDonald she begins say, "Eee Aww," all over again. It is really cute.

Here are a few more pictures that will make you want to give her a good squeeze the next time you see her.

Did They Forget Something?

As you already know, the weekend following treatment is trying for everyone in our family. Wednesday night I (Michael was out of town) braced myself for several middle of the night wake-ups. Instead, Thursday morning I woke up refreshed with 2 happy kids.

A little weird.

But sometimes it takes until Friday for things to go south on a treatment week. But Thursday night came and went, and so did Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday.

In fact, the week went so well and was so comparatively easy that I convinced myself that the hospital had forgotten to give Joshua his chemo treatment at all. After all, I didn't pay that close of attention when he was getting it, so I fabricated in my mind how they had simply neglected to push through his chemo.

I actually called the hospital today to check, and they assured me that they had indeed given Joshua his medicine. Nothing to do at this point except praise the Lord for another 4 weeks down, this one without many side effects. 

The Battle

Tomorrow is another Wednesday at the clinic. Joshua will once again receive chemotherapy and an immune booster, followed by 5 days of steroids. It will be a difficult week, but today I was reminded of all the patients that have walked this tough road. Renee put together this slide show for Childhood Cancer Awareness Day. It shows all of the people we have come to love on the 6th floor and the poor families that have lost this ugly battle.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Make a Wish

If you're not familiar with the Make a Wish Foundation, it may be one of the coolest, more generous organizations we've ever run across. The idea behind it is to allow kids with life threatening illnesses make a wish, and see that wish granted.

They let kids meet random Nascar drivers, take them on shopping sprees, buy them computers, attend sporting events and play catch with famous baseball players, buy huge playground equipment for the backyard, and countless other things.

The time has come for Joshua to make his wish.

So we had a meeting last night with Jacilyn, his make a wish consultant. Now here's the thing - there have been families in the past who have tried to work the system a little bit, making their kids wish for a new hummer or to have their mortgage paid off. So we knew that wouldn't work. But to prevent that, each consultant has an interview time with the kid where they draw pictures together and answer questions. My assumption is that they take all this information to craft the experience.

Joshua's interview was pretty revelatory. Here are a few choice tidbits, complete with what we were thinking:

Jacilyn: What's your favorite food?
Joshua: Strawberries
(Wow - pretty healthy start Joshua. Maybe you should have said prime rib.)

Jacilyn: How about junk food? Do you like chips, or candy?
Joshua: Yes. I like Sunchips.
(Hmmm... we've had Sunchips once. At lunch yesterday. Daddy likes Skittles, Joshua.)

Jacilyn: What if you could have anything in the world? What would you want?
Joshua: A Wall-E movie.
(What? Really? How about a life sized robot to cook and clean instead? Or maybe a hummer?)

Jacilyn: If you could meet anybody in the world? Like a football player or a baseball player?
Joshua: Eli. I would meet Eli.
(That's great. Your cousin Eli. That you see 3 times a week.)

In all seriousness, though, it was awesome. Joshua did a great job, and he did just what he was supposed to do - be honest. We will not at this time be revealing what the end result of his wish is; you'll have to wait a while to find out, but we're pretty excited.

30, Finally!

As my birthday has been approaching, several people have asked me how I feel about turning 30. My answer, "Bring it on." My life, up until now, has been full. It has included world travel, a beautiful wedding to a wonderful man, a successful (I'll be it short) career as a teacher, two amazing children, and great friends to accompany me all along the way. Along with these joyous pieces of my 30 years, I've experienced difficulty that I didn't think possible in my 20's: walking with my parents through failing health and disappointment and sitting with son through months and months of chemotherapy. After all of this, good and bad, I feel like I should have been 30 five years ago. 

In effort to stay looking and feeling young, I will continue to obsessively exercise, shop at Forever 21, and watch movies that were made for 15 year olds. If you see me wearing mom jeans, running for PTA president, or buying the best of Barbara Streisand, please remind me that 30 is the new 20 these days.

Regardless of how I look or what is to come in the next decade of life, I do know that my God has proven himself faithful. I look forward to all ways that God will continue to draw me closer to Himself.

A Better School Day

Some of you may remember the blubbering post from last year. If you look back, we confessed the tears that flowed after we dropped Joshua off at Mother's Day Out. This year was much different. Joshua didn't cry. I didn't cry. Andi, on the other hand, cried pretty hard. But then she stopped.

The kids had a great first day of school. Joshua had a blast and Andi quit crying almost immediately. Joshua's teachers were very concerned to know all about his health, his needs, and what we expected from them. Incidentally, this is the same group of teachers who almost 2 years ago pointed out a rash on Joshua's stomach that would eventually lead us to the leukemia diagnosis. It's pretty amazing to think that many of them have prayed for him for these long months and now he's back in their lives again.

We're looking forward to a great year.

Lake Life

Our good friend, Allison, invited us to join her at her parents' lake house on Lake Keowee for Labor Day weekend. Even though we were apprehensive about the six hour drive to get there, it was very clearly worth it. 

Joshua was like a little fish in the water. He ran and jumped off the dock about 500 times and loved inner tubing with us. Michael and I loved getting to water ski again after a long hiatus. Joshua was so enamoured by the water skiing that he referred to his inner tube as his water skis. 

Andi was a bit of different story. While she did look very precious in her swimsuit and life jacket, she did not take to the confinement of any life preserver. Needless to say this made us all very nervous, but Andi did come away from the weekend even more golden brown than before.

All in all, it was a relaxing and fun weekend. Our soreness from the water sports is going away and we look forward to doing it all over again soon. Look out Platts, we may be joining you soon!