It's Been 1 Year Since Diagnosis!!

It sure has been a really long year, but we made it. Halfway done with treatment! We have 1 year to go, or 52 weeks or 363 days, whichever sounds better, I haven't decided yet (see sidebar). ;)  He just got put back on chemo because his counts came back great! Yay for good counts! Now I don't have to worry so much during our trip. It was nice only bringing Tyler into the clinic for once. I didn't even have to use the stroller! It's been a while since that's happened. He weighed 21 pounds 15 ounces. 1 ounce up from a couple weeks ago. Hopefully he'll continue to gain!

Here's Tyler with Dr. Brew, his pediatrician who found the Leukemia and sent us to Children's. Tyler wasn't so thrilled, we had just poked his finger for labs and did an exam. Perhaps I should have thought to break out the camera before we tortured him.

Dawson went to school again today. He cried when I put him on the bus, but when I got him off the bus he grinned and said "bus, happy". So maybe that was him reassuring me that he had a good day? I checked his communication notebook and sure enough, his teacher said he had a good day. He still loves to count, he can do 2-6 now. He skips 1 for some reason and pauses after 6 to have me say the rest. Just last week he was just doing 2-3, then 2-4. He counts everything. Boxes on shelves in the store, people, whatever he finds he can count.
He also tries to recognize letters. While unloading groceries tonight, I had put in a Blues Clues movie for the boys so I can get things done. Dawson met me at the door saying J-O-E! Joe! Wow. He's definitely very interested in learning lately and it's been a lot of fun. We point out letters and words in the store, as well as colors and shapes. I pretty much let him decide when he wants to. I'll point things out sometimes, but it's rarely necessary. He's usually busy saying HI! to everyone in the store or counting things. In Target he wanted to walk, so I let him. That went well at first, but slowly he started defying his limits and ended up back in the stroller. He pushed it for a while and was listening well for longer than I expected, so I was happy with his progress. :)

Dawson has been fulfilling his duty as the troublesome toddler. Yesterday he brought me 5 squished bananas, because he'd tried to open them. I had to clean up pop that he'd gotten out of the fridge and spilled under the fridge. He kept stopping the music I was playing, it's a rare treat for a reason. It's hardly worth the battle to try to listen to it! He also tried to help me with supper while I changed Tyler. He's very good about knowing that the stove is hot, but still thinks it's his job to stir whatever I have cooking. He slopped the stuff all over the stove, so I had that to clean up when I got back.

I cleaned out the diaper bag and reorganized using a smaller bag since I don't need to carry the central line kit with me anymore and they're using less diapers on an outing now. By smaller I mean I was using a really huge one and now I'm using a regular diaper bag sized one. I went out of the room, for either a Tyler diaper or to use the bathroom and came back out to find the contents of my nicely arranged diaper bag all over the floor and Dawson was eating a sucker he found hidden in there!

Dan found out how 'fun' he is this morning when he was watching him while I napped. I hadn't gotten much sleep last night, so Tyler and I took a nap. Dawson squished a banana into the mini trampoline, found the kitchen garbage bag roll and ran with it from our room to the living room, thus unraveling it the entire way. While Dan was fixing that, he hid my hairbrush and then ran off with the 2nd roll of garbage bags. All this was within about 10 minutes. I think Dan looked happy to be heading to work!

Jenny and I got out on a much needed sanity date on Monday. We went to Olive Garden, Munsinger Gardens and Target. Us moms can't get out of the house without taking advantage of the peaceful shopping. ;)  It was relaxing to get out again.

Tyler without a shirt. He was getting really hot. You can see the bump from his port and I hate how his ribs stick out these days! He needs some more meat on his bones.

Tyler's scar is still pretty dark but it seems shorter now for some reason

Dawson put on a big smile for the camera

It's tough choosing pics to post here when my subject is so darn cute! So here's a bunch of my youngest cute boy. :) 

I'm loving the zoom on my camera. Here's the moon tonight. If you click to make it bigger you can see the little craters around the edges on the left. Those darker spots are lower spots on the moon. The view was clearer on the camera, I was having a hard time holding still enough to focus good with Tyler bouncing around next to me.