May 14, 2006

Happy Mother's Day! Today we were up at the crack of dawn (it felt like it anyway) because Drea was being baptized. Church starts at 8, so to get the girls ready to go we had to be up a lot earlier than we normally are. Leah has radar hearing right now, so the moment I am up, she is, too. She has been talking about baptism for days now and was quite excited about it. Chloe had to be dragged out of bed a bit later. Baptism went well and the girls both enjoyed going up front to "help" with the actual baptism at church. They also enjoyed donuts afterward. We did come back and take a nap in the morning since lunch at Anna and AJay's was not until 1:00. There was no way that either of them could live without a nap. Leah also surprised me with two wonderful Mother's Day gifts: a book she had worked on with her teacher Mrs. Larson about me--the things she loves about me (that she can hold my hair), and a picture of me, what we do for fun....she was quite proud of it. Leah also had shopped with Chris for a gift for me--a ring with her birthstone and name on it that will allow for a ring from Chloe to be given to me in a few years, too. Our other highlight of the day was a trip to Dairy Queen and a leisurely drive around the country where we spotted some deer.

Tomorrow we go for a blood draw (port access). Chris is off tomorrow, so he will go, too. As of now we really don't think she will need blood. On Thursday her counts were good-platelets were 336,000, hemoglobin was 9.3, and her white count was fine. By Thursday this could be a different story. I remember how quickly her counts dropped last time---even after we thought they were as low as they were going to go. While I did not expect her counts to be low on Thursday, I was almost upset they were not lower. Her AFP really did go down a lot last time her counts were down. There is no happy medium-I worry if her counts are too low, and now if they are too high.

I have not blogged for a while, but life here has been almost "normal" for a few days. Today Leah decided that Chloe annoyed her twenty times today and was listing them off one by one. Then she added, "I've had it with her today. I'm ready to sell her on ebay." They actually get along fairly well much of the time, but today there seemed to be many moments they clashed about a variety of things.

The highlight of last night was a trip to the OP for supper. The girls had fun and we decided to stop at our friends, Heather and Matt's, on our way home. Right now we are driving our car since our van just got repaired (back from November when we were hit on the way to Iowa City for Leah's biopsy), and the car seats have not been changed back yet. Just as Chris and I got out of the car-me about 2 seconds behind him- he yells at me to not shut the door---just a moment too late. Turns out Chris had just tossed the keys back into the car as he locked the door-and both girls were in their carseat. We tried to coach Leah on how to get herself out, but with no luck. Chris and Matt started off toward Denver to get our second set of keys, and came back after just a minute or two. Chris has locked himself out before and remembered there was an extra set of keys underneath the car somewhere. The girls were not panicked at all, but I was happy that we did not have to wait for a trip to Denver and back to get them out.

Please, please pray for a very low---close to NORMAL- AFP number. (We would love a normal AFP, but that might be a bit much at this point). Please continue to pray for Leah's complete healing here on earth-normal AFP with no additional detours along the way. We still continue to be thankful for the emails, blog posts, cards, phone calls, meals, and gifts we continue to receive. All the support we receive does help us carry on and remain hopeful.