Andy & Jessica

For at least a year now, I’ve been wanting to get Jude started in karate.  Jude’s good friend from across the street is in karate and raves about the awesome instructor.  Last night Jude, Asher and I went to the karate school for orientation.  I was pretty impressed with everything I saw.  Jude loves Kung Fu Panda and Ninjago and going karate-like moves so I know he’s going to love it.  Jude also loves any chance to socialize with other kids and to expend some energy.  I think it will also be great for him given that we were told that after undergoing brain radiation that he wouldn’t be the “best athlete or the most coordinated person.”  I would love to prove that doctor wrong.  If Jude works hard at karate, I know he could excel at it.  I also think it would also be helpful in teaching Jude discipline.

The instructor asked Jude all excitedly why he wanted to do karate and Jude responded, “Well, my mom wants me to do karate.  I want to do kung fu.”  (Like you know the difference, Kid!  And, way to deflate the instructor!) 

Now we just have to work out the logistics of how to get Jude to karate lessons.  Apparently they are 4 days a week and he has to make it to 2 lessons a week.  I can certainly get him to the Saturday lesson and if I leave work early on Wednesdays, I can get him to the Wednesday lesson.  Andy doesn’t feel comfortable leaving the house with 3 boys in tow so he won’t take Jude during the times that are before I get home from work.  I may need to hire a driver/nanny if Jude wants to go more than twice a week, but hopefully it will all work out.

It’s MEA for school-aged Jude and Ivan so my sister sent her boys to my parents’ house for 5 days.  Jude is on his way there as well (Uncle Mike picked him up after arriving at the airport after some business trip).  Jude is pretty excited to get to spend 4 days with his cousins.  But, he’s also a Mama’s boy and was sad that I wasn’t going with.  He said that he would miss me and said, “I’ll want to talk to you.”  “You can call me,” I told him.  “But, I’ll want to see you,” he said.  “You can Skype me,” I repsonded.  “But, I’ll want to hold you,” he countered sweetly while snuggling up to me.  I think I’ll bring Levi and Asher there on Saturday so that they can get a couple days with their cousins as well.  5 boys — fun, fun.

Leaves and Ash (as I sometimes call Levi and Asher) are doing great. Ash is hard to keep up with. I walked from the toy room to the family room tonight while picking up and listening to the debate and thought Levi was at the computer (a common place for him), but it was little Ash. He had climbed up on the chair and was navigating the mouse of the computer and looking thrilled to be following in the footsteps of his techie Daddy and technie brothers. Asher says a few words (e.g., “toy”) and sometimes repeats even harder words that we say (like “turkey”).

Levi loves everything Thomas the Train, Cars, Cars 2 and Ninjago. He also has a sweet tooth. He loves to bake muffins and cookies and sample the batter. We can convince him to clean an entire room with the promise of just one Skittle (he loves Skittles). We’re hoping to potty train him fairly soon. His English is coming along, but still is not too impressive for his age (in 4 months he’ll be 3) and probably not understandable to someone other than close family. His German is, however, impressive given that he’s an American kid. Of the 3 boys, Levi is the closest to a Daddy’s boy that we have. When he wakes up in the middle of the night and I go get him, he asks to sleep in “Daddy’s bed.”

Half of Jude’s head is still as bald as can be. I noticed when reviewing a history and physical form that his pediatrician had to fill out prior to Jude’s last MRI that the pediatrician noted in the unusual appearance section, “head shaved.” Uh, not really. Some people have been asking us if we are keeping half of his head shaved or why we don’t just shave the whole head to even it out. We are not keeping Jude’s head shaved. The radiation caused the hair loss and we were told it would be 6 months before the hair starts to grow back again after radiation finished. So, that means that there may be no hair growth until March 2013. So, just in time for his 6th birthday in April, he may have his hair back. As to the question of why we don’t just shave his whole head – of course we’ve thought of that. But, Jude’s opinion is what matters most and when we asked him if he wanted to shave his whole head to look like Uncle Mike, he said that he had lost enough hair and wanted to keep it as it is.

We had a fun weekend. On Saturday, we went to Andy’s friend’s house for a Oktoberfest party. The friend has a young son and our boys just loved his toys and playset and didn’t want to leave. They also had lots of candy corn on hand so I didn’t really want to leave either. I scored some for the road.  The boys also scored 3 free pumpkins from the party that Jude and Levi decorated when we got home.

After church today, we headed to Sever’s Corn Maze with our pastor and his wife and young son. We didn’t actually go in the maze, but stayed busy on the gigantic inflatable jumpy pillows, the corn pool, the tire mountain, the petting zoo, etc. The boys could have stayed there all day, but we left after 2-1/2 hours or so.

A miracle happened on the way home — all 3 exhausted boys fell asleep at the same time and we were able to transfer all the sleeping boys into the house. I figured I would have a couple hours of super rare free time. I strongly considered working since I have a lot of deadlines for “early this week” (which I interpret to mean Tuesday). But, in the end, I decided to start Jude’s scrapbook about round 2 of cancer.  The scrapbook assembly is one of the ways I deal with Jude’s diagnosis. Lots of memories in that big pile of stuff — his shaved off hair from surgery #2; get well cards from friends and family; the piles of research papers I read when deciding on how to treat him; the shirt that was cut off of him from his seizure a week after surgery #2, his port etc.  I just hope that when I’m done with this 2nd scrapbook that that is the end of it.  I don’t want there to be a 3rd, a 4th…

I’ve always known Jude was sneaky, but he demonstrated it quite nicely tonight.

First, he asked me, “Is vitamin C good for you?” When I responded affirmatively, he said, “Then can I have some of this pink lemonade. It says ‘good source of vitamin C.'” I felt I couldn’t turn him down at that point and made him pink lemonade. He later admitted that he thought I wouldn’t say yes to letting him have pink lemonade since it has so much sugar in it so he wanted to point out that it was healthy since it had vitamin C. He’s got my number.

Then later in the evening he was watching some educational videos online (which I fully supported) but then switched over to a game website that I did not want him playing. I asked him to switch back to the educational site. Ten minutes later I found him playing games on the game site with the sound muted.

To Andy last night when Andy was exascerbated when he couldn’t find the remote control and had exclaimed, “I’m about to lose my mind!”:  “You can’t lose your mind.  It’s in your head.” 

To me when he saw Andy wearing Superman pajamas pants this morning, “Ha!  Are those jammies?  I never knew grown ups wore jammies.  I thought only kids wore jammies.”

The last month has been fairly miserable for me. I was so stressed out because I’ve been really busy at work and have had to spend much of the time on the weekends cramming for a big client presentation. The presentation was yesterday and went really well. It’s a huge relief to be done with it. Now I have time to turn back to the backlog of work I’ve been putting off.

During this month of misery, the boys got a new aunt. Andy’s brother got married last weekend. Andy was a groomsman and Jude was the ring bearer. Jude was pretty surprised and disappointed when he learned he wouldn’t be bearing any ring, but instead an empty pillow. The wedding was nice and he did great.

Last night when I was laying down with Jude after praying and telling a funny story he kept chatting and chatting and it became 11:20 p.m. He said, “What happens if I don’t fall asleep? If I don’t fall asleep at night and fall asleep in the morning, I’ll turn noctural. [I laugh] Really, I could!”