Chris and I had a number of concerns about how this week would proceed, me home alone with our son with cancer and the other kids while he took our 13-year-old for surgery nine hours away. However, God shows such tender mercy and care to us all throughout the week!
1. John's Surgery Is Complete
Chris took John--and Mary!--to Memphis, TN, Sunday through Thursday for John to have his planned surgery. Beforehand the gang got to visit Graceland and then the surgery went very well. I will write a full post after the gang arrives home and I have access to John's camera to download his photos.
2. Kitchen Back in Working Order
Our kitchen was out of commission for five days, but was then repaired beautifully! God gifted us again . . . The owner of the granite company sent his crew out to our home and the workmen reviewed what it would take to remount the sink and reconnect all the pipes, then texted back to the owner for approval of a price. Then the lead workman looked at me quizzically and said, "I don't understand this, but the boss says there is no charge at all."
I burst into tears and asked the workman if he knew our situation. He had no clue (but the owner did), so I told him while crying about Thomas's cancer and John's surgery and my being home alone. I told the workman that he had a really good man for a boss and he agreed.
Thank you also to the sweet friends who were scheduled to bring a meal and to those who spontaneously dropped off meals.
3. Outdoor Time
One morning I was walking for exercise in the cul-de-sac when I heard distinctly my name being called. Finally I spotted the source . . . too high up in a tree . . .
Can you find the yellow dot that is Mary?
I had intended this spring and summer to be one of great gardening: my first planting season on our new property! This was to bring me such happiness! And the licit good of gardening would have brought me happiness, but now I am mostly abandoning the plants for the deeper joyfulness of serving Thomas and guiding the others through a cancer diagnosis.
In the meanwhile, the plants I planted in the spring are dying of neglect in places, the shrubs are seriously overgrown, and the lawn (mowed but full of weeds) is a lost cause this year. Without putting myself under pressure at all, I did grab clippers a few times this week and just tackle one bush when it was convenient, like if I was supervising children playing anyway.
One morning I occupied the two littlest ones by having them join me in pruning one bush. The only way for a mother to get anything done routinely is to involve the children in it anyway, so it's better to just accept and embrace the reality.
John built us a retaining wall and used white rocks for the project, leaving me two leftover bags. While I was supervising children playing anyway, I made an inviting sitting spot under the great oak around my Columbine flowers.
For all these years, Chris has wanted to get me a bike and I always said no because for the first year I wasn't going to leave my new baby even at home with Chris anyway, and then I'd be pregnant by 15 months postpartum, so the tiny gap wasn't worth a bike cluttering up our garage for a dozen years. Well, the sixth "baby" is about to turn three years old, so I asked Chris for a bike. He found me this beauty on CraigsList! I love my Ladies Redy Classic Dutch bike and being able to sit upright instead of hunched forward feels so much better. Riding around the neighborhood, wobbly as I am after twenty years, feels absolutely exhilarating.
Not only did I get back on a bicycle, but I went in the pool two afternoons this week, water phobia and all, having plumbed the depths of the shallow end only once when we first moved in. Small steps are big for the individual person!
The kids were able to swim four afternoons this week, which is great because I see high chances of rain daily for the next ten days.
We also ventured off our property to go on a little hike! Click here to see photos from visiting McDowell Nature Preserve.
4. Thomas's Soft Start to Kindergarten
Thomas was so excited that when he saw his desk organized and books readied, he begged me to start Kindergarten. Without first day of school photos, without a date marked on the calendar, without any of my annual formalities, we just started some subjects!
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| Thrilled to have his first reading lesson |
My little fellow had his first All About Reading phonics lesson, penmanship, as well as working through the entire first PACES math booklet in two sessions.
5. Bibliophiles
These children love their books, thank goodness. Reading prolifically fills in many of my increasing gaps. While driving to Memphis, John and Mary used Audible to listen to and greatly enjoy Penrod (1914) by Booth Tarkington.
6. Clinic Day August 6
Thursday was Thomas's clinic day and it was entirely uneventful. He is a pro at getting his blood drawn, we worked on his sticker book in the waiting room, and then we heard that his labs were excellent, so we were sent home. Western medicine can be an absolutely amazing phenomenon and I thank God for giving us humans the minds to invent things like the Neulasta shot that grew Thomas's immune system such that his labs were within normal and his ANC was out-of-the-ballpark-good at 9,030 (normal is 1,500 to 6,000). Tom gets to go to Mass! Tom gets to interact with some pals!
7. Bonus Reading
- They’re Lying To Us. Here’s Exactly How They Do It.
- “It’s been seven months since the first COVID-19 cases were reported and it is increasingly clear that the repercussions of the pandemic are causing more harm to children than the disease itself,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. Coronavirus leads to mass hunger, killing 10,000 children a month, UN warns
- Post Ridicules Priest For Refusing To Abandon His Flock In A Pandemic, Then Getting Coronavirus
- "The key findings are as follows: (1) Actual deaths due to COVID are some 54% or 63% lower than implied by the standard excess deaths measure, and reported excess deaths likely include a significant number of non-COVID deaths. (2) While it is well known that COVID deaths are concentrated in the elderly, the study finds them to be particularly acute in the very elderly (75-84 and 85+ years old). (3) Over the lockdown period as a whole Government policy has increased mortality rather than reduced it." Research from Loughborough and Sheffield Universities suggests new approach to recording COVID deaths
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