Skip a day in the life

On Thursday Aug 19, Michele had her 4^th to last chemo treatment. For those that are paying close attention, you will note that this week should have been her third to last.  However, Michele has been experiencing neuropathy, the loss of feeling in her extremities and for that reason her oncologist recommended Michele skip last week and resume this week.  Beyond that, there is no new news to report (that is a good thing).  Three more weeks (assuming no more set backs)!

In an effort not to bore you with a ho hum update, I will try to entertain you with a day in the life within our home.

Lil is our 5 year and for several months now she has been coming into our bed at some point in the night. We fought this at first but I ultimately convinced Michele that she would grow out of it and the day that she does, we would miss it.  So my brilliant theorem has been working brilliantly.   Lil comes every night and I sleep on about 8 inches of space.  Genius!

On a recent night, Lil had an ‘accident’ and despite my protest that it was perfectly fine to wait till morning to deal with it, there Lil and I stood as Michele stripped the bed of sheets and remade it, suitable to sleep on again (I once tried to convince Michele that our late little pug Austin’s vomit could wait till morning but I lost that argument too).

No less than 3 hours later, Anabella, our rambunctious 21 month year old, awoke with a clamor. She had been flirting with potty training for a few weeks and she was adamant that she needed to do ‘pee pee’ as she woke up.

So we grabbed her and ran into the bathroom as a family and plopped Anabella onto the potty and encouraged her to do what she needed to do. With minimal hesitation she tinkled a trinket and we erupted into a hooting and clapping frenzy, trying to convey our enthusiastic approval to a 21 month toddler who had no earthly clue what we were howling.  Anabella accepted these accolades with fervor; she was eating it up.  But just as Michele and I exchanged happy and prideful glances, Anabella pounced off the potty and started to jump up and down in celebration. Sometime between the third and fourth jump her little butt-cheeks must have spread too wide and a little brown sardine snuck out and presented itself on the tile floor as if to say “hey, I am not one to miss a party!’

So there Michele and I were, paralyzed in an instant; we should have been thrilled that our 21 month old child had her first pee pee in the potty but in that same moment she had produced a Mr. Hanky on the floor, like a new color for Play-Doh. Of course, our 5 year old Lil was screaming “DOODY!!” over and over again in the background so the moment was tense and chaotic.  How best to handle this paradox?  ‘You did great Anabella!  We are so proud of you for going pee pee on the potty…but that stinky turducken you just dropped, well, you really need to be more efficient!’.

Frozen in contemplation, I did what any other guy would do…I started laughing uncontrollably and left the room and ran upstairs, leaving Michele to deal with the mayhem. In the end, as she always does, Michele made it all work out.

So there you have a day in the life in our home. If only I could adequately convey how I cannot spell home without m_i_c_h_e_l_e, but I am pretty sure the people reading this need nothing further.