Happy Birthday Tiny!

Sabrina is 8 today! She is a beautiful girl with a seriously sweet soul. She wants to make sure everyone is happy, but not in a way that makes me worried about her being a people-pleaser. She just wants people to feel good and comfortable. I love her so much!

Sadly, when we were swimming today she put her hand around the swimming slide and she was going down it and sliced a big chunk of skin off her finger. Ow! There was much blood and MUCH crying, along with some wailing. Grandpa Froerer was a champ, getting a rag and putting a Neosporin-ed bandaid on her poor finger. He's gotten better with blood since he started getting poked so much! I wonder if he's better with his OWN blood, since that was really his issue!

Tomorrow is Sabrina's baptism. It's very stressful to plan a baptism, but Sabrina is beautiful, so that helps. Oh, you need proof? Here you go.

I mean, right?

On another note, Raiden has been really into scripts lately. He'll tell me exactly what to say. He also remembers videos like you wouldn't believe. Today, he said, "Mom, tell me I'm a pipsqueak." So, of course, I did. The 4-year-old wears the pants in THIS family. Anyway, then he said a quote from Avatar (the awesome cartoon), "Who you callin' a pipsqueak, you giant-eared cretin!" You have not lived until you've been called a giant-eared cretin by a child!

Climb Kili

I am getting so excited for my Kilimanjaro trip! Our itinerary, should you be interested, is here. I'm getting butterflies!

One thing that I can't decide if I like or not is that I leave the day after school ends. On one hand, I don't have to sit around waiting for the trip after school ends. On the other, I will have ZERO time to adjust to being done with school before I go halfway around the world. Also, my kids will not have any time to adjust. They'll keep going to daycare for a couple of weeks, and they'll get to have field trips and fun playing time with friends. They might actually like it better.

Speaking of playdates, Sasha just had kindergarten round up. I've been thinking for MONTHS that I need to get Sasha's birth certificate (five years late) but the day before kindergarten round up OH MY GOSH I HAVE TO GET SASHA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE WHAT WAS I THINKING WHY DIDN'T I GET IT FIVE YEARS AGO. But not all was lost: I had the opportunity to get Raiden's birth certificate as well. Almost four years late. The important thing is that I have them now, right?

I talked to the speech therapist about Sasha's Rs. I know they say not to worry, but since Sasha's mother, uncle, and grandfather all had speech therapy, I think now is as good a time as any, amirite? She told me to have him say words that start with RA (apparently this is the easiest R) and to smile as he says it. Sasha said a perfect R. I am a genius! Oops, I mean the speech pathologist is a genius! Hooray!

So many milestones for us!

3 years

It's been three years since my cancer diagnosis. The next spring break I had surgery. The next spring break...well, it proved that spring breaks did not have to rival Bella-from-Twighlight's spring breaks in horribleness. Of course, being a stay at home mom is its own brand of torture. Let me go break up a fight.

I'm back. So, three years. Everything...oops, another fight. Okay. Everything CANCER RELATED looks good. My "scary thoughts" are rare and short-lived. My hair is shoulder length. With my clothes on, you'd never know.

On the other hand, my father-in-law was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer a few months ago. It's been bonding, I guess, but it's been hard on me (I know, his cancer is about HIM, but this blog is about ME) to think about cancer so intimately again. It's also been really hard on Zane, since he had to go through it once with me, and now with his dad.

On the third hand, cancer patients get all the cool stuff, as Zane says. I've been offered a grant by Ogden Regional Medical Center to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro! I found out, oh, three months before the trip and it's now two months to go. Mom is going with me. I'm super excited! I think I'm going to be featured in some publicity. Some of my 15 minutes, I guess!

Anyway, more than halfway done to my 5-year mark!

Potty Training

Raiden is 3 1/2 this week, so I decided it's really time to stop being reluctant and potty train him. He's pretty good at knowing how to go, but sometimes if he needs to go, well, he just goes. We've gone through a lot of underpants this way.

Anyway, I was trying to encourage him to wear underpants today, and he didn't want to. So I asked him if he wanted to be like a baby and wear a diaper or be like a big boy and wear underpants. After thinking about it for a minute, he said, "Be like a big boy wearing a diaper." Ha! I was able to convince him to wear the underpants. I think it was his pleasure at his wittiness that put him in a good mood!

Raiden's Third

I'm a little late, but Raiden turned 3 just a few weeks ago. Here's what he's up to these days.

His talking is great. He told me he loved candy because it is dewishous. Sometimes he likes to yell, "I love my butt and I won't shut up!"

Unfortunately, Raiden still has an oral fixation. I don't mind that he sucks on his fingers because that's dang cute, but I HATE that he is a biter. Almost worse? At church he leaned over and LICKED my face from chin to eyebrow. Gross, gross, gross.

Raiden is a snuggler. One of his most common questions is, "Mom, can I hold you?" Aw. Then he collects his big blanky and duck blanky and sits on my lap, sucking his fingers. So precious.

He's also really into the toddler tendency of collecting things. I find his caches of "stuff" all over. He had about six toys in his car seat and threw a fit at the thought of putting some of them on the floor. When he dropped one of them it didn't matter that he still had two cars and a million other toys, he needed the car that fell. Fortunately, Sasha said, "Mom, when the car stops should I find it?" Thank you, oldest son.

Although Raiden can be wanpaku (Japanese for a wild one), he is the sweetest little boy. He is tender with our pets, gentle and affectionate with his two baby cousins, and loves to play with Sasha and Sabrina. I love you baby boy!

First Broken Bone: It wasn't Raiden

Yesterday, the first day of summer vacation, Sabrina and Sasha were happily playing on Sasha's bunk bed. They opened the window. Sasha leaned against the screen. Sasha fell out the window, into the window well. It was actually pretty hilarious, except that he broke his arm.

Now, he didn't have any nasty stuff like a bone sticking through his skin or anything. No, it was just a little buckle fracture, probably caused by trying to catch himself, which means he doesn't have a cast. The doctor at the clinic just put a splint on the arm, told us not to take it off for four weeks except for bathing, and seeya for an x-ray in two weeks.

Sasha actually thinks the splint is pretty cool, and is excited to show it off. He can't really open a door or get dressed, but hey, he's only 4. He can still eat and play on my phone just fine, so he's good. He's not in much pain either. So, it looks like if one of my kids HAS to have a broken arm, this is a very nice one.

The only surprising thing that both my mom and Zane mentioned was that our first broken bone wasn't Raiden's. I see their point.

Cancer Birthday

This week is my cancer birthday. I'm two years out from diagnosis. I was talking to Mom about it last night, and she was saying this was a hard anniversary because you're done with treatment and FEEL far out, but you're still a long way from the "safety" of five years. I was having a really hard time a week or so ago. I think part of it was this anniversary, combined with that talk I gave at USU. Both of these things caused me to have to think about the whole cancer thing.

My "scary thoughts" usually come every month or so and last a few hours at most. However, I was on about day three of scary thoughts and couldn't take much more. I was using all my tricks -- ignore, repress, face, pray -- and nothing was working. Fortunately, this was all happening right before fast Sunday. I know you CAN fast without it being the first Sunday of the month, but it just doesn't really occur to me. But since fast Sunday coincided with these scary thoughts, I fasted for peace.

Wow. Fasting really works! I cannot believe the serenity I've been feeling this week. It's been Spring Break, as was my Week From Hell 2013. Last Spring Break I had just had my second mastectomy. This Spring Break could have been very stressful, but it wasn't. Thank you, Father. I'll remember that next time I'm stressed or unhappy, and maybe even fast without the expectation of Fast Sunday.