Easter Weekend

I guess I'm getting really bad at updating the blog regularly. The reason is that there's nothing new to say. That's a good thing. Things are getting so much better now, with the lower doses of chemo, and Matthew is playing more. He gets out and runs and plays. I let him play with other kids a lot more, as long as they aren't sick. He's still tired of being cooped up in the house, and when he feels this good, he's a lot more outspoken about it. He wears me out, trying to satiate his need to go somewhere, and run and play. I can't wait 'til the doctors give the stamp of approval for him to return to daycare. That's where he really wants to be. It seems that our general plan is that I will look for full time work (hopefully my own job will open full time hours back up to me, but if not, I'll expand my search within my company, or outside, if I have to). Matthew won't be able to go back to daycare until I have found full time work, for financial reasons, but it'll be a good step in the right direction, just to have the approval. That would also mean he could go back to church. Anyway, in the meantime, the lack of blog posts is very much falling within the "no news is good news" cliche.

In other news, I found out about a week ago that I'm pregnant. Matthew is really excited to be a big brother. All the kids are happy about it in their own different ways. At first, it had to sink in with the girls. They're teenagers, and it's unusual for their mom to still be having babies. But I think they're both really excited now that they've adjusted to the news. Mikey, too. I always wanted another baby after Matthew was born, but it seemed like the time was never quite right. Then, when cancer became our main focus in life, I thought it was ruled out completely. I didn't want to wait until after treatment, because Matthew will be turning seven then, and I'll be older than I wanted to be when I finished having babies. It never occurred to me that having a baby during Maintenance would be a happy medium. It seems like right now, the pendulum is starting to swing back, and although cancer is still a huge focus for us, it's not the center of the universe anymore. There's room for other things. Like a baby. I'm really happy we get to complete our family. Babies bring joy. This will be good for us all.

This weekend was sure a wonderful one for Matthew! In a lot of ways, it was like he was re-introduced to his life. He got to go to 3 Easter parties, complete with boatloads of kids. Saturday, we went to Justin's dad's house for his annual egg hunt. He got to play with his cousins - some who he maybe hadn't seen in a whole year, because of the cancer-imposed solitary confinement. He had so much fun with them! After the egg hunt, we had a fantastic meal. It was so nice, just to relax with family again, after so many months of skipping these things. I caught a few pictures on my cell phone, but not nearly as many as I should have.



After that, we went to Miss Caroline's house for her yearly Easter event. It was our first time there, although she had invited us last year at the daycare. She said a lot of the kids were getting too old for an egg hunt, so she started a new tradition this year: The Easter Olympics. They were cute, relay-type outdoor games done in teams. For example, she dumped a bunch of plastic eggs on the ground, and each team was assigned a color. One person at a time could go get one egg in their team's color and bring it back to the basket. If a little kid got the wrong color, the next kid had to take that egg, and put it in the "bad egg" basket, and they would forfeit their turn to pick up a good egg. The first team to get all of their eggs won. She had about an hour and a half worth of games like that, and completed the event with gold medals and trophies for the highest medal winners. I only got video of this party, and I can't figure out how to get still shots out of the video. I'd post the video, but there are loads of other kids in it, and I don't know if their parents would like that. Anyway, he did a LOT of running at this party. In the video, you can see that it tired him out. He was struggling to run by the last game. It was interesting, because he kept running until he was completely tired out. Then he sat down on the driveway. One of the other parents said to him that he should keep helping to pick up all the eggs, and he said, "I've picked up all the eggs I can."

He definitely knows his limits. He ran right up until the end, compared to the rest of the kids, who walked when they got tired of running. But then he knew when it was time to sit down and rest. I hope someday, he'll feel strong enough to stay up with the other kids again. I was really happy he got to play with so many kids this weekend, but I was sad to see him struggle. Thankfully, it didn't bother him at all. I think he's too little to understand that it's made him a little bit different. I really hate cancer...

Anyway, on to Sunday. We went to my mom's house with the kids for Easter dinner. My sister and her husband and kids were there, too. We did another Easter egg hunt. Matthew has been telling Grandma for weeks now that he will hide the eggs at her Easter party. He's so matter-of-fact about it, and made the decision all on his own. He could not be talked out of it. He was really excited when we got there, and the girls helped him hide the eggs. Then all the kids went out and hunted for them while we had dinner cooking. I got a lot of pictures of the back of kids' heads. But I liked this one, in particular.

This is Alaina helping all the kids count their eggs, so we could be sure we had them all. In this picture, it was Matthew's turn. I like it so much because of his hair! It's so thick these days. You almost can't tell he was bald anymore.

Anyway, we had a good time at my mom's house, and again, Matthew got to rediscover some cousins. My sister has two boys, and Matthew is right in-between them in age. He had a great time playing with them! I hope my sister and I are able to plan some fun activities throughout the summer, so these kids can get together again soon.

We're looking forward to Matthew's doctor appointment on Wednesday. I'm really hoping they'll say he can go back to daycare. I'm also hoping to see good counts. He seems to be handling his Maintenance so well. I really hope his body is reacting like it's supposed to.

I'll update after his appointment to let you all know how it went.