March 2023 in Review

Catholic Quiz Bowl 2023

Congratulations to the organizer and participants on the first annual Catholic Quiz Bowl held in NC! Our family has attended the Catholic Quiz Bowl a couple hours away in SC for years, but no longer do we have to burn up the highway because this wholesome fun event is now at our parish. The kids grades 5-12 were enthusiastic and bubbly all morning. Now this mama can close out a month of hosting many practice sessions for middle school and high school teams and transition into all the practices and costume creating for the Broadway Revue show!

Unexpected Hospital Admission

Home, sweet home, jiggity jig! Thomas had an unexpected overnight at the hospital and a trip to the OR. 

During Quiz Bowl on Saturday, Thomas developed an infection over just an hour or two—a problem we’d battled twice prior in six weeks. It may be recurring because he is immunocompromised, or because "sometimes this just happens." We had dealt with it each time with ten days of oral antibiotics, but this time I texted a photo to Thomas’s surgeon and he agreed it was time for hospital-level support. 

So I left Quiz Bowl after four of six rounds--to my motherly disappointment--and drove straight to the ER.  It was a simple matter but one that required an overnight admission, IV antibiotics, and OR time with general anesthesia. The staff was so kind and helpful, as always.

Now we're home and hoping Thomas has kicked this problem to the curb!

New Shoes!

When you are kiddo #6 and your mom is frazzled and overwhelmed so for the last several MONTHS you’ve been down to only one last pair of shoes that fit (cowboy boots, no less): the day finally comes when your mom buys you a new pair of sneakers. Pro-tip: wear the sneakers at all times, sleep with the sneakers in their shoebox in your bed overnight, and put them on while still in your pajamas before coming downstairs.

Orchestral Concert

I was privileged to attend Mary’s lovely Prep Orchestra concert last night!

Oral Iron Challenge

When you have to visit the hospital twice in one day for timed blood labs, it is made more fun if you get to invite your brothers along for lunch at the hospital Chick-Fil-A! (It is also more fun if your mom actually remembers to bring the medication necessary for you to eat. But for once she forgot and so eating was delayed an hour until we were home.)

Thomas Starting Golf Lessons

Today Thomas had the best time at his first lesson with First Tee Golf! The virtue of the day was good sportsmanship, so Thomas practiced by cheering on his classmates. If you see Chris walking around with a big black eye, it is because he was helping Thomas with his form and didn’t step out of the way fast enough before Thomas swung with all his 7-year-old strength and whacked his dad directly in the eye. Being a dad has its hazards!

Tilly and Nicky, Best Friends

Camp Care

We had a great time last Sunday at our first Camp Care event: playing laser tag at Mission Laser with a bunch of other kids and their siblings who have experienced cancer. Apparently they host social events almost monthly, with their crowning annual event being a sleep away camp in summer (no current plans for us to attend that ☺️). We look forward to getting to know the Camp Care crew better!

I Can Succeed at Only One Thing at a Time

I am notorious for walking into the kitchen at 4:00 p.m. only to realize that I have not marinaded the dinner meat or even thawed it. Therefore, I would like to mark the calendar today because I have tonight’s Orange Chicken marinading by 9:30 a.m. of course, this means it is 9:30 and I have not begun teaching homeschool or cleaned the kitchen.

St. Patrick's Day

For the first fourteen years or so of our family life, I was all about Catholic liturgical living. The feast days, the planning, the associated catechism! Now my best HOPE is to get through each day and MAYBE fulfill most of my duties. My 5- and 7-year-olds apparently made a table decorations for St. Patrick’s Day. I slept for a total of three hours last night. I forgot to have any of us wear green today and I didn’t plan a festive meal because our family schedule meant we would be on the go all day. This is a different season of life!

Locks of Love

Our daughter Mary (14) donated her hair to Locks of Love and got herself a fresh, fun hairstyle!

Tales from the homeschooling front . . . 

When you’re so very tired and it’s 9:00 p.m., kids still WIDE awake, and you find yourself losing your temper because the 7- and 9-year-olds won’t stop memorizing the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights long enough to brush their teeth and get in bed . . .

Margaret's Twelfth Birthday

Happy 12th birthday to our lovely Margaret! She enjoyed a celebration with a couple of girlfriends over for a movie-themed night in which we all watched "Mary Poppins Returns" (which, by the way, I recommend as a rare movie enjoyable for the whole family from toddlers to the oldest folks). Margaret is finishing up 6th grade and is growing in grace every day, discovering personal insight, becoming increasingly independent with her homeschooling, and becoming a competent babysitter. She is a bookworm extraordinaire and continues to pursue classical voice lessons. Like her mama, she prefers solitude or one-on-one relationships, unlike the whole rest of our gregarious family. 🙂

Broken Clavicle

Thanks for the well wishes for Margaret! Two days after her birthday, she broke her clavicle practicing some dance moves. A clavicle can’t be casted, so it sounds like these will be a fairly limiting 6-12 weeks keeping her clavicle immobile. We are grateful it wasn’t worse!

Nest Building

A bird is building a nest right outside our school room window, so we get to watch the construction all day long. The kids comment on every new stick delivered. Pretty magical!

Beautiful, Smiling Faces

My local Charlotte friends might appreciate hearing that yesterday, March 28, marked when mask mandates were lifted in almost all Atrium locations (Oncology excepted). Thomas happened to have an appointment with his Surgeon yesterday and it was such a joyful surprise to see all the smiling faces of the staff. 

Apparently Novant and CaroMont also lifted restrictions.

Without editorializing, I will note the fact that, over three years, only the front desk workers mandated to do so have ever asked us to wear masks. With one notable exception, I will describe that over 6 rounds of chemo, 132 days in the hospital (two months in PICU), numerous visits to the ER, and the last two years of ~24 annual follow-ups in clinics (this doesn't count sick visits), Thomas and I have never been asked by a doctor (out of the ten specialties who follow him) or a nurse to mask up.

Contraband

Considering smuggling Tilly to school. Nicky alerting us to the situation: he wasn't going to have his sweet girl kidnapped.

Made a Piggie PBJ for one of the boys today

CCE Elementary 2022-23: That's a Wrap!

Today was our last day of CCE Elementary—our homeschool co-op at church. We had a wonderful last day of memory work testing and a party. Both Joseph and Thomas earned the testing certificate that was their goal!

Two more months of CCE Middle School for the girls! And of course the elementary boys are still doing homeschool even though their co-op is done till fall.