Andy & Jessica

Today Jude and I got an early start to our day.  We needed to be at Children’s in Minnetonka at 7 a.m. for Jude’s MRI.  This was the first time we had gone 6 months between scans.  The appointment snuck up on me and I barely had the chance to worry about it.  After I woke him up way too early, I watched Jude like a hawk to ensure he didn’t eat or drink anything (since he has to be sedated for his hour long MRIs).  We then headed out.  He was so excited to get to “do the mask.”  I’ve realized that the kid is addicted to the nitrous oxide (laughing gas) that they use get him ready to drift off to sleep, before placing the IV (for contrast and fluids).  He happily chatted with the intake worker and taught her all about the Garfield app he was playing on my phone.  He balked when I was filling out the paperwork and dared to ask him if he was pregnant, which the form needed to know.  After filling out the paperwork, the nurse led us back to get him weighed, measured and checked over.  Then he and I played some basketball and ring toss type games that I dominated at.  He picked out a nice smelling grape Crush-flavored chap stick to paint the inside of his mask.  We got wanded to check for metal on us and quizzed down about loose teeth.  I walked him into the MRI room and he insisted on jumping onto the table himself.  He likes to hold the mask to his face himself and the nurses/doctor are always so impressed with him and think he should teach a sedation class to all the other kids.  After he drifted off, I gave him a kiss and then grabbed my work bag and headed to the waiting room to wait.  An hour later, he was out and recovering, sleeping soundly.  It took him about a half hour to wake up.  With slurred speech from being half asleep, he requested a green popsicle and some Lorna Doones and ate them even messier than he normally would.  The nurse was militant about not letting him walk out of there.  She and I loaded him in a wheelchair, while he protested about how he could really walk.  He wheeled himself down the hall on the way out and stopped for a bathroom break.  While the nurse was out of the bathroom, Jude insisted on marching around the bathroom to show himself and me that he could really walk.  As soon as the toilet flushed, the nurse marched in to ensure Jude wasn’t walking.  I got the car and drove it around while Jude was waiting with overprotective nurse who he described with a look of disgust as “crazy.”  We then headed to McDonald’s to get Jude his first meal of the day and pick up Andy to head to see the oncologist.  She wasn’t running far behind today, which was very unusual.  As soon as we see her, I wait with bated breath for the results.  It turns out the radiologist hadn’t read them yet, but she did herself and they looked good — no sign of recurrence.  By 7 p.m. today, we got final word with good results.  Another scan by the end of the year.

Asher: “Mommy, do you like something that you like?  Yes you do so why don’t you marry it?”

Me:  “I’m married to Daddy so I can’t marry anything else.”

Asher: “You could change out Daddy and then some other girl could marry him.”

(We then discussed me marrying ice cream, which is definitely something I like.  Potentially messy though.)

“So those bumpy things on you have all the milk that the baby needs?”

“Mom, whose going to be in the middle when the baby comes out?”  (It will be interesting to have 2 middle children!)

“Mom, you know what I just noticed? Grandmas and grandpas are smaller than dads and moms.”

Asher: “Mom, Levi left his underpants on the bathroom floor.”

Me: “You can pick them up and throw them in the dirty laundry if you want to be nice.”

Asher: “I don’t want to pick them up with my dirty hands.”

“When the baby comes out, I’m going to let her suck my thumb.”

I found this scribbed on a piece of paper in my work bag so that means we were out and about and Jude said something cute that I jotted down.  I don’t think I got it entered here so here it goes, “Mom, did you ever notice that you can talk to yourself in your mind?”

The 5 boys whacked open the pinata today to reveal that it’s a girl!   Can’t say that I grasp that reality.  A girl.  That is a foreign creature to me.  I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do with her.  I plan to give her lots of kisses and cuddles (which certainly can’t hurt and which I probably wouldn’t be able to resist doing anyway) and I have no plans to cut her hair.

6 weeks from her due date: “I wasn’t hungry until you said ‘snack.'”