A Quarter Without Cancer

Prince Charming had the first of his post-surgery quarterly screening visits yesterday. The results were relayed to him today, by his surgeon. His lungs are clear. This is the news we need to hear every quarter for three years, biannually for two years, and annually thereafter. This is really good news. In my translation it means this: PC is cancer-free for this quarter. I need the cancer-free label (don't forget - this blog is all about me) I know he craves it as well. Until June we are once again permitted just to lead our normal lives. Who would have thought two intelligent adults could be so grateful for too much work, too little play, and one very small and spirited toddler. I, for one, am feeling an irrepressible bubble of well being. Right now, today, we are on track and all is well.

During my absence from the blogosphere my fabulous friend LawyerMama has taken many beautiful picture of the spirited toddler - most of them portray him as, literally, breathtakingly beautiful. Her pictures of my baby take my breath away.

So I am looking forward to easing back into the blog thing (reading and posting)... without a huge black storm cloud directly over my head. There may be a storm coming but its not even showing up on the Super Duper local news radar. That's just the way we like it around here.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes

I am 46 years old today. We won't do much. I've purchased several fabulous presents for myself in the last few weeks and, as PC would be the first to point out, I don't need anything. That is true. (I want to completely re-do my sewing room but that is not likely to happen.) There is a difference, PC tells me, between need and want. I do understand it and I don't need anything. There are some personal things, of no global importance and in no particular order


That I want:

1. To lose 20 (ok 35) pounds. PC would put this in the need column. I joined weight watchers, my firm generously paid for a 17 week membership, and yet I've had a net gain of 2.2 pounds. This is a direct result of not following the plan. Hmmm. I could give myself permission to eat expensive but healthy lunches until Thanksgiving. Oh goody. Yet another gift.



2. My oldest son to be happy. (I want all three sons to be happy but I think, for the most part, the younger two already are.) I can't give either one of us a gift to help achieve it but I sure want it.



3. My back, which I wrenched somehow while tucking in the Pumpkin on August 18, to quit hurting and spasming. I take the prescribed anti-inflammatories and I take the muscle relaxer (prescribed for four times a day) at bedtime since it caused me to fall asleep at my desk and while driving on the interstate no matter how much I ate or how much caffeine I consumed to try to counteract it. So, the gift of chiropractic care. The whole concept of chiropractic care makes me very nervous but I have heard several stories from women of how it helped their chronic back problems so I'll give it a try. [Edited on September 27 to add - I never got around to the chiropractor but it seems to have finally healed.]



4. To somehow balance my work, my passion for quilting, my Pumpkin's need to spend LOTS of one on one time with me, and the other important facets of my life (my marriage, my older children, etc.) I am lucky in my marriage in that my husband expects me to sleep with him each night, spend a few evenings a week with the baby, spend all weekend with the baby, and do the deed three or four times a week. That is not a lot as far as expectations go: he does all the cleaning, most of the cooking, takes care of the yards and the dogs. I take care of the baby. My middle son, T, likes it just fine (he claims) that he is under my radar. He doesn't cause any trouble and I don't spend too much time fretting about him or, more importantly to him, quizzing him about his life. I think my oldest son, R, would prefer that I be more hands on even though we live on opposite side of the continent. R is 21 now and sometimes he calls and we have great conversations and sometimes he calls and I end up flinging my cell phone across the office.

PC is right I really don't need a thing (except possibly number 1 above). That said, with all my silly wants and fully met needs what do I have to show for the last 46 years:

1. 3 healthy sons. 2 of them officially adults, one still a toddler.


2. A 17 year marriage to a man I love beyond words.


3. 24 completed quilts, many quilts in progress, and my recent inheritance, from the Queen, of about a thousand yards of fabric (all in color coded bins) and at least 60 quilts in progress. She went through the quilts in progress with me when she first found out she was sick and explained who she was making each quilt for and how she wanted me to finish them.


4. The certain knowledge that I helped my father to die well, the way he wanted to.


5. A law degree.


6. Membership in the State Bar of California (too bad I happen to live in Virginia... that is certainly a topic for another post.)


7. Nearly $200,000 in student loans. At $800 per month they'll be paid off in 20 years. (I just think of them as my vacation home - when I'm 66 and finally finished paying for them - I probably won't even want a vacation home anymore.)

Not too bad I guess. Nothing that helps to further world peace or anything. Just a regular family living a regular life. I do have a deep appreciation for the time and place I was born. My lists above would probably be really different, and not in a good way, had either one of those things been different.

The Center of the Universe

LawyerMama recently allowed me to do a guest post on her blog while she was on vacation. I liked it so much that I've decided to see if I can fill my own spot every day or so. That doesn't mean I'm foolish enough to skip an opportunity to cross-post so - if you didn't catch me at Lawyer Mama - here's the story of how the Pumpkin came to be all over again.

Just in case you missed the bulletin the world now revolves around a young Virginian named Caleb. (Hereinafter the Pumpkin.) I am 45 years old. The Pumpkin’s brothers, R and T, are 21 and 18 YEARS old. The Pumpkin is two. He is the terrible, incorrigible, adorable, fabulous, funny, willful center of my world. I got pregnant (all three times actually) the old fashioned way: unexpectedly and unintentionally. Yes, I do know where they come from but according to my doctor no more babies should have come from me. He (Cute Dr. J) sent me for an ultrasound to see why I wasn’t having periods. He wasn’t particularly concerned and it took me a few months to get around to having it (hard to schedule at the Navy hospital, new job, missed the first one when my car was left too long in the valet lot and the keys went away with the attendant – you know I was BUSY). I eventually presented myself at the hospital and was chatting with the ultrasound technician about how I’d never seen an ultrasound without a baby in it when she squirted the gel, placed the thingamabob on my stomach and Oops – I still haven’t seen an ultrasound without a baby in it. Sixteen weeks along, all his fingers and toes clearly visible, the Pumpkin.

My equally busy husband, Prince Charming, was stationed on a ship the year the Pumpkin was conceived and was deployed when I found out. Not a long deployment just gone Monday through Friday most weeks to PREPARE to deploy for six months. I told him on a friend’s cell phone (Prince Charming NEVER hears his phone ring) as they were leaving Connecticut. Prince Charming had apparently spent the weekend in various bars with his friends extolling the virtues of being at the “finish line” – said friends all had young kids and we were nearly through raising ours. T was in high school and we could see the childless light at the end of our tunnel. He also had a dream about a fish (apparently a sure sign that a baby is on the way – who knew).

Stunned disbelief followed in short order by fear, amniocentesis, and finally overwhelming relief that the baby was a healthy boy. (I know, I only wanted a healthy baby but I REALLY didn’t want to have to face a 17 year old girl when I was 60.)
Prince Charming’s ship deployed, as scheduled, one week before the Pumpkin was born (nope, they don’t make special allowances for that in the Navy, and nope, the Navy physicians do not induce labor prior to 38 weeks just to allow Dad to meet the baby before he leaves). This was followed by ten days of exhaustion in the hospital while the Pumpkin had pneumonia, four months of exhaustion and loneliness while home alone with all three boys, and two months of exhaustion and exhilaration when I started work at a new job (which I still love). Then finally, the ship came home, Prince Charming met his Pumpkin, and we gradually settled into our present life.

That life, and all its side topics, will be the starting point of this blog. Who knows where it will lead....