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.

What's Cookin'?

It's been a pretty easy going couple of days. On Tuesday I got a call from the Help Me Grow program at the school. The same one that sends someone for Dawson once a week. Tyler now qualifies for some services as well. Someone is coming on May 4th to do a quick evaluation and update his file to make sure he does need services. He's just a bit behind in speech. He hasn't picked up a new word in about 8 months. At this age, speech isn't a really huge deal, but since Tyler is on chemo, they'd like to get things going early to keep him going in the right direction. Chemo often causes learning disorders and other things so we like to keep ahead of things. Many kids on chemo have physical difficulties with muscle tone also, but he's actually on the top of the curve in his physical development, so no worries there. The Dr is always very impressed to see what all he's doing. I can't wait for the day when he can walk into the clinic on his own.

I took the tape off his incision yesterday, it's healing just as well as it did the first time. They did use the exact same line, so I was relieved that he doesn't have to have yet another scar. I still feel his port all the time, it's just habit now! It's still in place and facing the right way, which is always a relief. I'm still trying to baby that shoulder so I don't stretch anything!

I'm still going skating every Tuesday. It's a lot of fun and feels good to break up the week a bit and get out. It really helps. Mon, Tues and Wed are hard with the meds because I have 1 extra those days. He still fights them and it takes 2-3 hours to get them all in. Tonight I finally got them all down and he threw up. It's so frustrating! It was enough to need a bath, which he enjoyed but seemed to be missing Dawson who was already asleep.

Sleeping babies are so cute!

I don't get many pics of Dawson anymore. Every time he sees the camera, he wants it for himself and is behind the camera before I can get a pic! But I convinced him to hold still for a few.

He was trying to pose

Smiling but also annoyed that I wouldn't give it to him!

Patience gone!

Adorable smile! I was holding him and trying to take a pic, so it's off center.

My little Tyler monster!

Things should be more interesting now that he's learned to climb!

Good thing I taught him to get down before he figured out how to go up. :)

He's good at it too!

Tyler has hair!! It seems to be growing fast.

Dawson was so tired. The babysitter wore him out good I guess! He fell asleep on the couch, rolled and fell off. I guess he was too tired to either lay on the floor or get up again, so he stayed like this! He didn't complain or even wake up when I scooped him up and brought him to bed.

I went to heat up some leftover Mac n Cheese today but found this when I opened the microwave. Nice to know that Dawson and I had the same idea today!! My way of making it tastes better though! Good thing he didn't actually turn it on, he's done that in the past. I will find plastic cups and bowls in the microwave. He just scoots his chair right up there. I can't convince him to keep away from it!

Tyler is excited and clapping. He does this a lot, he's the happiest baby I know. :)

Dawson wanted a pic of him at the table too.

Surgery and Spring Cleaning

We've been so busy lately, I haven't had time to make a new post! I've been doing a lot of Spring Cleaning lately. I went through all the baby clothes and got them sorted by size. I have a bin for each size so far. Dan set up the bunk beds he found by the dumpster. They needed boards for under the mattress, so he cut those to size today and we got the bottom bunk all set up and ready for Dawson. He's sleeping on it for the first time tonight. We're using the top for storage until Tyler is ready for it. Probably not for at least another year. We'll see, I would like Dawson to be 4 or close to it before putting him up on the top bunk.

Dawson put the boppy on his lap, so I put Tyler on it. I was surprised that he didn't shove him off his lap like he usually does. He never used to be tolerant of Tyler sitting next to him. Instead he smiled and then leaned over to give him a hug.

Tyler wanted an Oreo. He got more on his face than in his tummy, but he had fun trying to eat it.

Surgery Day! Tyler's port kept flipping over all the time, so they flipped it back over and sewed it in better. Dan was holding him while I blew bubbles while waiting for surgery.

He loved the bubbles and was just happy to be held by daddy and playing with bubbles.

He got suspicious after a while, with all the Drs and nurses coming in. He started looking pretty nervous and stopped smiling. He was fidgeting and everything, I felt bad for the poor little guy. It was easier when he had no clue what was going on. He was glancing around, waiting for something to happen.

He knew he was doomed when I got all gowned up. He gave me that pity look that makes me feel so bad for making him go through all this and cuddled up to me. 

Mask and all. Poor Tyler was looking at me funny, wanting to make sure it was still me, so I kept talking to him until he was under. He fought the gas a lot, but went under quickly once he stopped fighting.

After waking up. He was very alert but stayed quiet for a while. He tired quickly at first, but he came out of it faster than he has in the past.

Giving me a goofy face. Still has his funny sense of humor intact, even after surgery. :)

He was very happy to see Daddy after he woke up. It's a special treat to have him come with to the hospital. He only takes off work for surgeries and other major stuff.

He decided he'd had enough and he wanted to leave. Was only maybe 20 minutes after waking up and he was up and crawling on the bed!

I told him he's hooked to the wall and we can't go anywhere. He must've understood because he started pulling at his tubes to get them off!

Daddy's hat is lots of fun, it distracted him for a few extra minutes so I could ask the nurse to unhook him.

This was the day before surgery. He has hair now! Not much, but they say it should keep coming in. His chemo for Maintenance isn't the type to cause hair loss. Looks like he'll get hair before Dawson did after all!

Dawson got very tired playing at Grandma's house on Surgery Day. He slept in the car and proceeded to fall asleep on the couch after we got home! He never did wake up, we put him to bed and he slept all night. He went to bed 3 hours early!!

Cute sleepy boy. He's been going to bed earlier these days. Bedtime is very easy too, I just tell him to go to bed and he goes to his room.

I found watermelon flavored snow cone syrup tonight at Walmart! I wasn't even looking, but there it was. I couldn't find it anywhere so I'd given up looking very hard. I flavored his chemo with it tonight and he seemed to like it a little better. Hopefully he'll tolerate it better with that in there.