Hooray for Friends!

The night before our last trip to Texas, I received an unexpected phone call from Washington from someone whom I'd never before met. It turned out that she was calling on behalf of her sister Mel, who lives down the street from us and also happens to be a good friend of mine. Mel's sister was calling to let me know that my friend's infant daughter Avery was back in the hospital and had just been diagnosed with leukemia.

Mel is a mom in our playgroup. She and I first met at my house a couple of years ago at our playgroup's 1st ever meetup. Her son Ian was just a few months old at the time. He's now nearly 3 and one of Pumpkin's favorite friends. Mel's daughter Avery was born last September. Recently, Avery came down with Bell's Palsy. A couple of weeks later, she was diagnosed with infections in both of her ears, and a week or so after that, she was rushed to the hospital with an uncontrollable fever resulting from a kidney infection (I think). This latest ER visit came about because her fever had returned and wasn't going down. More thorough tests were performed, and Avery was diagnosed with Acute Lyphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).

Our playgroup friends have really come together cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and shopping for Mel and her family while they deal with chemotherapy, infections, lengthy hospital stays, and separation. Most recently, another playgroup mom Kristi P and her hubby OMP organized a benefit pool tournament that raised over $4000 for Avery! The benefit took place this weekend, and it was a lot of fun. It was really great to see so many families from our playgroup in attendance. It was also wonderful to see Mel enjoying herself with her family and friends, however briefly the outing. :)



Throughout this ordeal, Avery's been a real little trooper. She's a wonder to behold, and even though I'm not a "baby" person (as many of you already know, hehe), I can't seem to keep my eyes off of her whenever I visit them at the hospital. You can read more about Avery by visiting this link: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/averyspicer. The password is averyspicer.

Out of Control Advertising?

After sitting through a couple of Mirena commercials, Pumpkin has decided he wants to get Mirena. I suppose this is because life looks like so much fun in Mirena-world. I told him he couldn't have any because it's only for girls, and he seemed to accept that. Then, the commercial came on again a bit later, and now he wants to know what Mirena is used for. LOL. It's like a cosmic joke!

Just the other day, he was asking (again) about his baby sister and where she was and when she'd be ready, etc etc. Then, he took a long look at me and asked "when my baby sister is ready, how is she going to get out of your tummy?"

I'm not generally squeamish about teaching him the proper names for body parts, but so far, I've managed to avoid teaching him the word 'vagina.' For whatever reason, that word does make me a bit squeamish, but I also can't bring myself to make up a goofy name for a body part or come up with some fairy story about how babies are born (or created, though, thankfully, he hasn't asked about that YET). So, right then and there, I told him about vaginas and explained that's where babies come out of when they're born.

I should explain that I was on "the potty" at the time (those of you with kids will understand how it is that he and I came to have a conversation like this while I was using the restroom, lol). Well, upon hearing my explanation, he peered aghast into the bowl and exclaimed, "she's going into the potty?!"

Maybe I should've titled this post "Kids Are Nuts" haha.

Good News!!

I just got back from an appointment with my OB, and boy, am I in a GREAT mood!! Originally, I was given a due date of Sept 21 based on my LMP (I won't go into details for those who don't understand what that means ;). Since then, I've had an amniocentesis and several ultrasounds in which the baby consistently measured about 3 days older (??). The Specialist said it wasn't necessary to change my due date, but today when I was visiting my regular OB doctor, she said that they could go by the earlier date in determining how soon I could be induced. This is good news!

So, now, I'm scheduled to be induced on Friday, September 12th, which is over a week sooner than I was thinking I'd be finished, and believe me, I am ready to be done with this pregnancy! Come to think of it, this is absolutely fantastic news!

Of course, the baby could still come earlier, but we'll keep our fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

Pumpkin, meanwhile, is very excited about his baby sister. Every day, he asks when she's going to "be ready." He's already proclaimed that he will teach her how to play trains, and yesterday, when I was commenting about getting her room ready, he offered to let her sleep with him since he has "lots of space" in his room. My heart literally swells to think of what a sweet boy he is. (Knowing how sibling relationships go, however, I'll just have to see how long THAT lasts, haha.)

Monster Update

We've been back from Texas for 4 days now and have seen neither hide nor hair of Monster Dog. Before we left, we could hear him barking at us all the way from inside their house, but there's been nary a peep from that house since we got back.

Hmm, I wonder if they opted to get rid of him on their own initiative before the court date or if perhaps they've already gone to court and were ordered to do so. Either way, it seems that M.D. is gone. Thank goodness too.

I've seen the neighbor (the dog's owner) out and about a few times since we got back, but I haven't the nerve to ask about Monster Dog....also, I'm just not that mean, and I don't want to upset her by asking in the first place. I don't think she was all that attached to him in the first place since it seemed like M.D. "belonged" more to her hubby than her, but still. I saw her and the kids at the grocery store today, and the kids looked upset. I sure hope it wasn't because of M.D.

Vampires & Monsters

I was watching TV the other day and was surprised and excited to see that HBO is developing a new series based on my favorite vampire books by Charlaine Harris! Based on the previews I saw, unfortunately, neither the characters nor the settings are anything like what I've pictured in my head as I've read the books, but I suppose that doesn't really matter since I don't even have HBO at home, haha. Hopefully, I'll get to watch the series on DVD at some point. I don't really have the patience to watch a weekly show anyway.

In other news, the thing that I'd long feared at home finally came to pass. My neighbor's monster dog escaped from his house and attacked my other neighbor's 11 year-old son at his own house! Cal survived with just a few stitches, but the outcome would've been much worse had "Monster" gotten his fangs on any of the smaller kids.

Many of you have heard me complain about the neighbor's monster dog. Whenever we take Sunshine out to the back yard, the monster chases us back and forth along the fence barking and snarling like a rabid beast until we run back inside our house. It's very unnerving, especially because we know he's jumped the fence at least once before and could easily do it again. My fear was that, one day, this idiot monster dog will get himself so worked up that he'll come at us over the fence, and I won't be able to stop him from getting to my baby. "Monster" easily weighs 3-4 times as much as Pumpkin, and tiny, little Sunshine would just be an appetizer to him. I've even gone so far as to price baseball bats because I'd like to have something with which to defend myself should the unthinkable ever occur, but I haven't set my mind on it yet. Besides, I'm not sure I want Pumpkin to see me pummeling a dog to death. Yes, death...because if that beast ever attacked my little boy, I'm quite sure I wouldn't be able to stop myself from killing him.

Much anger in me there is. Yes.






And, yes, I've talked to the neighbors about their dog. Some months ago, I was having a bad morning (as many of my mornings have been since I became pregnant). I let "the kids" outside to play, and almost immediately, I heard the beast start carrying on as usual. I brought Pumpkin and Sunshine inside, but I was so enraged that I literally marched over to the neighbor's house in my slippers and banged on the door until someone answered (many minutes later--and I did ring the doorbell first, but they didn't answer that either ;). As calmly as I could manage, I told them my concerns about their monster dog and asked them to do something about him. After that, they started taking him inside whenever we'd step outside so things are a little bit better, but obviously, "Monster" has the capacity to get away from them, and as we can see, the results can be disastrous.

Cal's parents pressed charges, and the dog has been under house arrest (i.e. quarantine) since the incident. QT and I are trying to see if there's any way we can add a statement to their case asking the court to get rid of the dog. Let's hope. I'll update y'all later!