Southern Charm

An important note: the mac and cheese from Panera is life-altering. It might even contain the cure for cancer, I'm not sure but damn, it's good. I'm sure it's also contributing to my ever expanding ass, but this week, I'm over it. I managed to escape strep throat and an ear infection from the kids, but did catch a cold, yay. Is there anything more frustrating than a summer cold?!?! So, a cold combined with chemo recovery week is every bit as fantastic as you might imagine. Luckily, the chemo part has just about worn off and I **think** the cold is on it's way out.

It's been a wild couple of weeks between traveling, chemo and all the other random insanities that turn up unexpectedly. Our insurance fiasco has been fixed (even though I was fully prepared to go postal on several different levels...it's the Irish in me, what can I say?) and I was able to get all of my testing scheduled. Tomorrow will be a busy day! I have a Herceptin treatment, then an MRI followed by a punch biopsy (which is pretty much as lovely as it sounds!). I'm tired just thinking about tomorrow! My PET Scan will be next Tuesday and then it's just waiting for my surgery. It's hard to believe that it's already time...wow!

My kids continue to exasperate and overjoy me on a daily basis. Stella has no shortage of things to say (she is MY child, afterall :)) and we get such a kick out of listening to her. For example, when I put her down for a nap, I "encourage" her to close her eyes and rest. I was listening to her chatter on the monitor yesterday and it went something like this: "You OPEN the eyes, you CLOSE the eyes". On and on she went until I was crying because I was laughing so hard! It's the little things... While my mom was visiting we decided to get Stella a tricycle. She's OBSESSED with bikes and talks about them all.the.time. She refers to the trike as her bicycle; pronounced: biiiiicycle. The child has a pretty intense southern accent, from where, I'm not sure. Cetainly not from my Yankee husband (how northern transplants are referred to down here, in case you were wondering) and I'm pretty Virginia (I think) so who knows. Some of her other phrases that we love include: "The Hill (prounounced: Heeeeel), My Colors (pronounced: Mah Cullllors), and Carry You (which means carry her...). The Stella-isms certainly make for animated conversation!

Simon is still my grumpy old man but happier these days. He is sleeping almost 12 hours at night (LOVE him for that!) and rolling around to get where he needs to go. Simon is NOT a fan of solid foods and each day we battle him trying to get him to eat. The boy just loves his milk! Simon is now sitting up and thinks this is perhaps the coolest thing ever, second to big sister of course. He absolutely thinks the sun rises and sets with Stella. The two of them are starting to interact together and it just warms my heart to see them playing together. It's moments like this that make all the other insanity worth it. Please remind me of these words when Steve heads to Scotland next week to play golf and I'm left alone with my darling children for a week... please! And that's a tale for another day...