August 2023 in Review . . . trying to catch up for my blog-only followers!

Keeping track just because this is our life . . . Thomas had five medical appointments in August plus four days inpatient at the hospital.

Mom-and-Dad Date

Only five months late, we took Margaret out to lunch today to celebrate her last birthday. A couple of years ago, we started a tradition that after each child’s birthday, we would take them out for an inexpensive one-on-one date. Very lovely.

Thomas's Birthday Zoo Trip

We spent today at the North Carolina zoo, which was Thomas’s belated birthday gift. We hadn’t been there in years and it was wonderful!

Thomas Developed a Liver Infection

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans! A lighthearted joke for this Type A Mama who planned to start homeschooling on Tuesday but ended up accompanying sweet Thomas to the hospital instead. He is being treated for a liver infection (cholangitis), which is nothing contagious but is a condition he is always at risk for due to his anatomy.

On Monday, we had a great day trip to the zoo, but by 5:00 p.m. back at home, I found Thomas curled up with a fever. We ventured to the hospital early Tuesday morning and he was admitted.

His spirits are good in between bouts of pain and tears. Our family at home does not need any help at this time, but we are always happy to receive prayers!

I just realized that with this admission, sweet Thomas has possibly spent time on every floor of Levine’s! Does this mean he wins a type of BINGO?

4th Rehab
5th Surgery and PACU
6th PICU
7th, 9th, and 10th Observation/Surgical Patients
8th Progressive—this is the only floor I’m not positive he has stayed on!
11th Oncology

We are outta here! Thomas is being discharged (after four days) just in time to celebrate his brother David’s birthday.

Mama Facetiming with David on the morning of his birthday

Happy 6th Birthday, David!

Happy 6th birthday to our “baby,” David!

By the grace of God, Mama got home from Thomas’s hospital stay on David’s birthday so we could celebrate in ever so modest a way. Dollar Store decorations were put up and Margaret wrapped all his gifts beautifully. We didn’t have a cake—but all in due time! John took him out on a very special older brother outing to the ice cream parlor.

David is a precious little sidekick to anyone who will play with him and still very much my baby.

Launching the Homeschool 2023-24

GOD WILLING, now we will really start homeschool this coming Monday. (I am trying to start a bit early to accommodate Chris's upcoming surgery.) My homeschool room will never look as nice and neat as it does today, when nobody is doing school in it, dreams remain unpopped, and hope is unfettered. Grades this year are 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, and 1.

We had a successful first day of school! I was done teaching the three elementary-aged boys by 12:15. This is a "soft start" and not all our subjects have begun for the year--nor am I yet managing the top three students--but we did cover a lot and I feel content. Sometimes I get asked "how I do it?!" and one big answer is that I know I can't do it all and I no longer try. I cannot possibly teach math, phonics, spelling, grammar, handwriting, etc. TIMES THREE every single day. So some things must be daily (math) but some things I feel compelled to spread out, such as alternating which days we do spelling, which days we do phonics, and planning to finish a one-semester grammar book over the course of the whole year. Our family no longer has help with housekeeping, landscaping, or babysitting/mother's helper, so we're trying to do it all by ourselves. One person can only do what she can do: God, please fill in the cracks. (Photos have fun commentary.)

I can only teach one kid at a time, so I'm asking the boys to read independently while they wait. Thomas chose MacBeth.

First grade math!

We are pet sitting a dog, so we had three dogs constantly in arms during school today.

My fifth grader chose to read a children's version of The Epic of Gilgamesh during his independent reading (and snack) time.

Joseph and Nicky

Joseph wants us all to know his opinion of our new grammar program.

Even the teacher constantly had a dog in her lap.

Each boy has a box of independent reading on the subjects of: science, historic fiction, classic literature, and saints. I also have their snack boxes in the school room with us, so they can just snack while doing school instead of interrupting me.

My plan is for us to listen to one chapter from TAN's Story of Civilization twice each week, as well as having my fifth grader read the chapter (so a third exposure to the information). AND THAT'S IT.

While Thomas (3rd grader) was waiting for me at one point, he wrote an entire comic book called "The Kidnapper." It is four pages long with thrilling illustrations showing a man kidnapping a dog from a pet store and being pursued by people shooting from a helicopter, and someone even escaping by a grappeling hook.

Day one complete by 12:15! I taught math x3, spelling x1, phonics x1, grammar x1, handwriting x3, religion, and history. We will build up our stamina from here, but I am content.

Local Blood Drive

My friends over at Wren's Village just had a new bloodmobile sponsored here in Charlotte. It is so often that I remember that Thomas could not have survived without the 93 (!!!) blood transfusions he received over the course of only 4 (!!!) weeks. Based on blood volume calculators, that means Thomas's entire blood volume was replaced 34 times. Chris has been donating platelets every two weeks this past year, and is impatiently waiting right now while he is forced to take a break in anticipation of his own surgery . . . he wants to get back to donating!

Beautiful Young Ladies

Tonight I took my two beautiful young ladies to the fancy hair salon for back-to-school hair cuts. Meanwhile, I excitedly used my quiet time in the salon lobby to browse a new broom-and-dustpan set on Amazon (and still haven’t chosen one because there were so many nuanced differences for this housewife to consider). Then my girls woke me up, my having fallen asleep on the salon sofa because I am always so very tired. I remember having the world as my oyster, and now I’m looking forward to buying a broom, if I can just stay awake long enough. Thus the cycle of life continues.

CCE 2023-24

The first day of CCE (our elementary school co-op) went swimmingly! This year it looks like I will have one hour of Nursery duties, I will be teaching Geography to grades 3-5, and I will be a substitute for sick Presenters. All glory to God.

Organization (Correspondence)

Our family can sleep a little easier now that I’ve organized the Correspondence Drawer. Easily labeled for anyone to find. And each category of cards is bundled together and labeled. Have an emergency correspondence situation? I’ve got you covered.

Cat Campaign

My kids are trying their best to convince Dad to get a cat! (Never going to happen.)

Home Pharmacy

My medical mama friends will identify with this bump in the road of trying to keep us in stock of everything Thomas needs!

I've learned a lot about iron deficiency, such as that there are many forms of iron, they are bioavailable to varying degrees (read: some of those iron pills you're buying are pretty worthless), and people with different GI conditions or reconstructions need very specific forms of iron. Thomas needs *one* form of iron and as a *liquid*, not a pill: and if he takes that daily at about 12x the normal RDA, and combined with vitamin C to enhance absorption, then our sweet boy can maintain his iron without having IV iron infusions.

BUT! The form of this medication is currently very hard to find on the market. First, our doctor prescribed it, but the hospital pharmacy called me to say that there are only two manufacturers and both currently have NONE. The pharmacist told me to hunt for it on the open market. I found a bottle from one of the manufacturers and bought it. But now that I'm ready to re-order, I discovered that the stash available on the open market is now used up, so I hunted down a bottle from the second manufacturer. Thomas's hematologist requested, "Please order him several months' worth!" So I purchased three months' worth and now we hope that the manufacturers will have more made soon.

I try to keep a buffer stash of all his meds in the house and now I try to avoid watching movies about societal collapse because those are now too scary for me to contemplate.

Golf Lessons Resumed for the Fall

First Food Impaction

Thomas gave us quite a scare when he experienced what we now know was his first food impaction. He will always be at risk for this occuring due to his total gastrectomy. His food got blocked, either in his esophagus or small intestine and just sat there. He could breathe just fine, but it was incredibly uncomfortable. He began retching (dry heaving) over and over for nearly an hour. We were in constant contact with his surgeon and were just about to load him into the car to go to the Emergency Room to be scoped when he successfully vomited up the large amount of food. It was so scary and sad.

Miscellaneous Moments

Thomas loves assembling his anatomy skeleton.

Reading in the lobby of the new oncology clinic

Thomas got dressed on a random day just to show me what he would wear on Sunday.

John and Mary going to a dance

John works 15-20 hours per week at the ice cream shop.

Mary has begun taking organ lessons and here is practicing at Belmont Abbey College.

Food Photos

Snacks

Today is the fifth day of my trying a new experiment: providing snack boxes for my elementary-aged children. Each boy has a box with his name on it, and each morning I fill it with snacks to cover the whole day. He can eat the snacks at will, but there is no other food allowed the whole day outside of the three meals I cook. I've tallied that I'm putting about 500 calories in each snack box, which helps me know that when the kiddos tell me they are STARVING and HAVEN'T BEEN FED ALL DAY, it simply isn't true.

The snack boxes are letting me manage my grocery stock and budget more strictly. Read: the goal is to no longer allow them to eat me out of house and home on just SNACKING MINDLESSLY.

Not only does this idea potentially control costs more, but it should stop the constant interruptions to my day, interruptions during our school time, and messes (like a bomb went off) in the kitchen.

I realize that other options would be (1) disallowing snacks whatsoever or (2) sitting down as a family at prescribed times for me to serve food out of large containers (e.g., a jar of applesauce, not individual serving cups of it). We already sit down together for three formal meals per day together, so there's just only so much nutritional and familial perfection to which I can aspire while still doing all my other duties.

I'm hoping to do a Soft Start of Homeschool next week, so we'll see how this Snack Box Experiment proceeds then. It's been very helpful so far!

One-Month Snack Box Update

I have been trying my new method of Snack Boxes for the elementary-aged boys for a full month now. This idea has proven very helpful to me, and I have made some tweaks.

1. I only make boxes Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, we pack snacks to go to homeschool co-op, and on weekends I just don't do the boxes.

2. I am currently making the boxes enough to last only for the mornings, which is the main period of time we are doing elementary school when I need them to remain at the table and not leave to forage. Therefore, they are now limited to only three items in their snack boxes (Thomas having the exception to have however much he can eat, of course.)

3. I have adopted a new practice of dividing up bags of food (e.g., a giant bag of white cheddar popcorn) into serving sizes . . . which are always shockingly smaller than children (and adults!) want to eat. Have you looked at how tiny a 150-calorie portion of Cheez-Its is? It's only about 15 tiny squares!

4. I am using tiny stickers to mark all the easily accessible foods with a number that indicates the dose of medication Thomas needs to take in order to eat it. I am trying to empower him to eat without my help.

5. I have adapted my laundry room to house grocery boxes (Dollar Store!) that contain easy dry goods for the boys to select on their own. We meet in the morning in the laundry room and I supervise their picking their items. Fresh fruit is available on the counter and cold items (e.g., string cheese, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, Laughing Cow) are available in the refrigerator.

Maybe after the second month, I'll post another update of how Snack Boxes are working for us.

This morning, my 8-year-old son cooked a fried egg for his 6-year-old brother, and then made an egg for himself—totally solo.

Dog Photos

We are having loads of fun with nearly daily visits to our neighbor who has a new miniature dachshund puppy, all of three pounds, very confident pounds.