anna360

When we first moved here, dd was 2 and I did all sorts of activities with her: trip to a llama farm, apple picking, drop in gymnastics, drop in mommy & me singing classes, etc. Well, ds is 3 and I haven't done a lot with just him. He usually just gets dragged along to all of dd's school events. He has fun, but... TODAY, just ds & I went with a group of moms to a local farm. He had a great time. It was nice to do something just with him. It was a 50 minute trip to the farm, but he's much better in the car than he was 9 months ago. No screaming at all. No emergency potty stops. It was very doable. We'll have to do more of these trips.

Today's trip was to Kelkenberg Farm http://www.kelkenbergfarm.com/.
 

After 9 months of unexplained symptoms, MIL finally has a diagnosis: multiple myeloma (mm: cancer of the plasma cell in bone marrow). This is an incurable cancer but can be put in remission. MIL needs to get more answers, but even with the diagnosis, they won't start treatment until she gets worse than she currently is. MIL was an incredibly active person and how she feels now has drastically decrease what she can do. It's hard to understand why they won't start treatment until she's worse, unless the side effects & risks of the treatments will be worse than what she's experiencing now. 

The doctor at the cancer center told her the life expectancy for people with mm with treatment used to be 2-3 years, but is now 8-10 years. Mil will turn 78 at the end of this month. I hope she gets the 10 years and I hope they're 10 quality years. 

A friend of mine is a breast cancer survivor and she highly recommends Gilda's House for support for anyone with any type of cancer. I mentioned it to mil and she said she saw brochures for it, but didn't take any because she thought it was just for people who had the type of cancer that Gilda had (ovarian?). I told her it was for any type of cancer. I was at the Y today and they had brochures their from Gilda's House, so I grabbed 2 copies of everything: 1 for us and one for mil.

Mil next bone marrow biopsy is May 5. Perhaps looking into Gilda's House will help pass the time and provide some needed insight.

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I've been telling dd for years that in our family you don't get married until after you've gone to college, gotten a job and turned 25. Sometimes I share with her the wisdom of not starting a family until after you've been married at least 2 to 5 years. Will my mom having turned 90 earlier this year and with mil's health issues, I've started realizing that in 5 to 10 years my children will have no grandparents. Now, I occasionally adding that once you're married, your late 20's & early 30's are ideal times to have children. If dd & ds wait till their late 30 & early 40's like dh & I did, then their kids will also have older grandparents and lose them when they're young. I'm going to do everything I can to live a long, healthy & active life, but my kids can help by not waiting too long. 

Of course, I don't want them to marry just to have kids. I don't want them to have kids just so I have grandchildren. I just want to forewarn them of some of the drawbacks to being and having older parents and older grandparents. My mom didn't have me until she was 42, and I never felt any rush to have kids. I had no idea that we'd have major problems conceiving kids which delayed us even longer. Just one of my life's lessons that I hope to pass on to my children.

I have fine, thin, flat hair. I'm a wash & wear type of gal. Not much time to "style" it. I also try not to use "products" in my hair as I spend a lot of time outside and the bugs already love me too much. I have a hard time finding hairdressers that can cut my hair well. Where I use to live, a woman named Amy cut my hair. She had my type of hair and knew just what to do. I followed to 3 different hair salons and then to the house she was renting which had a salon room in it. She ran into hard times (unpaid medical bills for the delivery & care of her youngest child), her debt became enormous. One day I drove to her house for my appt only to find it empty. I later talked to a mutual friend and she said Amy & her kids had just disappeared. At that point I started growing my hair out. 

I bit later I found someone new to cut my hair, but then we moved. I tried new hairdressers and finally found April. She did a great job and cut my hair for 3 years. About a week before my next appt, I get a call from the salon saying that April got an office job and is no longer doing hair. I try another stylist at the salon, but hate the cut. I get the name of another stylist from my babysitter and make appt. It takes Lynnette a few cuts, but each time we get closer to something that works for me. She finally nailed it last week only to tell me that the salon is being sold. She'll cut hair out of her home which is a bit of a drive for me, but not too far. However, she & her hubby are looking to buy a house an hour or so from me. Given my limited window of time to get my hair done without having to drag the kids along with me, I think I need to start looking for someone new.  Maybe I can perfect my everyday wash & wear, but still look good hairstyle with Lynnette and then alternate between seeing her and new stylists until I find a new stylist that can do it. At least I have Lynnette's contact info!

Today we went to a minor league baseball game. One of the mother's groups I belong to arranged for box for our group so the little kids could walk around without wandering off. It was only in the 40's, but the sun was shining and it ended up be a glorious spring day. Much to our amazement, our 2 children lasted all 9 innings. DD asked when we could go to another game. I explained that I had only been to 3, maybe 4, baseball games in my life, so there were no promises of when, if ever we'd make it to another game. I suppose it could become an annual family outing, but I can't it happening any more frequent than that.