lessons

We do have a fence around our pool.  It is an eye sore beautiful.  It is safe. It is $1200 safe. Thank you to our children for increasing our tax return only to turn around and spend much of it on their safety.  WORTH. EVERY. PENNY.

But I still want to teach my kids that if something falls into the pool, you shall not, under any circumstances, attempt to retrieve it.  I think kids reaching into a pool for something has got to be one of the most common causes for the accidents I cannot even speak of.

Carter gets it (for now while there is a fence up). 

I was playing handball.  I know, I'm cool like that. I was hitting a big green bouncy ball against the pool fence and trying not to break my amazing ability to hit it each time after one bounce, while increasing my speed.  Well, I guess I hit too hard and the ball went over the fence, into the pool.

Carter was very upset livid about this.  At first I thought he was just sad that I stopped showing off my handball skills. But then I realized that he realized that the ball was gone, for good, at least until daddy went inside the gate to get it.  He threw a bit of a tantrum but I had already sat down in my blue chair and it was too comfortable for me to get up and get the ball right then and there and I just pushed his and Nolan's big booties in a stroller for 45 mintues and played a mean game of handball. Also, I'm trying to teach a lesson here people!

And so to go with my lesson idea, we let the ball stay in the pool area for a good two days before getting it out. During those days that seemed like forever for the poor child, each time we went outside, Carter pointed and spoke babbled about the ball.  He was very concerned about it.  He even tried to tell his Auntie Krissi all about it.

Unretrievable my son. Sorry.

Okay, two days was enough. Here ya go sweet boy.

Sullivan Sunday

Sullivan is my nephew.  He is the 5 year old son of Brad's sister, Kari and her husband James.

In January, he was diagnosed with anaplastic medulloblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. We are all so thankful that most if not all of the tumor was removed in surgery.  After recovering from surgery, he began aggressive treatment which consisted of 6 weeks of radiation along with chemo. He recently had a few weeks off to build up his strength and on Monday, May 9th, he began receiving large doses of chemo.  He was hospitalized for the week to receive the poison-like drug and to be monitored. He came home and was doing great but as expected, he ran a fever on Thursday and was admitted again to be monitored.  That turned into a few more nights in the hospital and a blood transfusion. We hope he comes home today! The doctors say that Sullivan's white blood cell counts will be at their lowest days 7-10. That is why they expected the fever. But I don't think we quite expected all of this! Since this time frame is when his immune system is its weakest, we are all staying away for a few more days, especially since who know what germs our kids bring home from daycare even if they don't show any signs of being sick.  We hope to get to spend some time with him next weekend.  His counts should be up then and continuing to rise as the 28 day cycle comes to an end. Once he is strong enough, he gets zapped again. This treatment plan will continue for 6 months, or 6 major doses. One down, five to go!  He is also receiving other drug therapies and taking many more drugs to manage appetite, nausea, and other side effects.

Sullivan has a 3 year old sister and 7 month old brother. He is an absolutely amazing kid. Brad and I love him very much. He is fascinated by airplanes and one of his favorite things to do is go to DFW to watch planes take off and land.  He is so personable. Not long ago, he sat down at our kitchen table with me and said, "so, Auntie Rachael, how is school going?" and we carried on a nice conversation about what he does at school and about teaching math and how I will teach him this type of math when he turns 16.   He notices the simple, pleasant things. "Uncle B-rad, it is such a beautiful day today! The sky is so blue!" He loves books, soccer, baseball, bowling, school, that x-box kinect dancing game, things that glow in the dark, tackling adults, playing board games and swimming! We've worked hard to make him a Redskins fan but he is still torn between them and the Cowboys. =)  Regardless, Sullivan is awesome and I'm thankful he is such a strong little boy to take on this disease!  He is very aware of his fight and is fighting hard!

Visit Sullivan's Caring Bridge website here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/sullivanjones

I believe in the power of prayer, hope, positive thoughts, vibes, whatever you call it.  Please send some of it to Sullivan and his family.  Their patience and strength continues to amaze me.

Duck

No, not talking about the game, Duck Duck Goose.
I mean, duck...or by this point it is probably too late.

When Nolan holds the ball over his head in preparation for an awesome throw, you can pretty much gage the parabolic path by approximating the initial velocity and angle of depression. (That was for all you math nerds out there.)

However, when he winds up for the pitch with his arm horizontal and practically behind himself, you really should take cover.

As if his wide, focused, excited eyes don't give you enough warning.

The release is inconsistant and powerful. The ball goes far and fast.

The follow-through is surprisingly impressive; the aim, not so much.

So are you wondering if there was enough spin on that ball to hit the camera lense? or mommy in the eye?  I'll never tell.

Whose idea was it to give him a golf ball to throw anyway? Ping pong would have been way better.

Way Back Wednesday

Cleaning up my iphone pictures.
Found these:

Yep, that's me plus 75 pounds. They were taken at 36 weeks, 2 days, February 2, 2010.  It was the day before the boys' arrivals. Oh those poor little pants. I feel for them.

Then I recalled an email that I sent to friends at 32 weeks along, stating that I was done taking and posting pictures of my ever growing belly.  There is something about feeling bad and feeling like you look like you feel that makes you want to hibernate.

Now that I'm a bit (only a bit) more comfortable in my skin (15 months later), this picture brings laughter, excitement, reminiscence and shock, of course.  Maybe a few of your jaws dropped, too. You're welcome.

blogging

On my drive to work and my drive to pick up the kids after work, I constantly think of what I'm going to post on my blog.  Well, I think about it in between the calls I make to win things from radio stations (There, I confessed)  That's besides the point.  I am getting the blog bug again.  This summer I will finally start posting again. I am totally obsessed, fascinated, humored and humbled by my kids and the events that occur in our household that I've just gotta share!

more to come