There have to be at least a half a dozen people in San Diego right now who are cursing me…or my children (rather Jamie and Julia).   At some point in time you inevitably end up being *that* mother; the one everyone shakes their head sagely at and goes “If those were my kids they’d get a good spanking”.   
   I’ve got Mom, Dad and Julia staying with us again for a few days while mom has more testing done.  Julia being the proverbial baby of the family was too much for Hannah and Lydia to deal with and so I volunteered my wicked witch of the west personality to keep her toeing the line down here while Mom rests.    Not that I’m always mean, but Julia put her hands on her hips today and informed me that she doesn’t want me as a sister anymore, she’s going to be Jamie’s sister instead.   Fine by me.   I can’t think of her as a sister anyway, maybe someday we’ll have a more sister-like relationship, but for now she’s more like a foster child.  I guess that’s what happens when there’s a good solid 16 years between the two of us.
   My evil knievel armor though, has some chinks in it apparently.  When we went grocery shopping today Julia told me with a sad little sigh and a slump of her cute little shoulders that mom always lets her use one of the little shopping carts for kids.   I looked at her and felt a pang of guilt that I’m hardly the sweet sympathetic mother she’s used to, so in a moment of kind heartedness I agreed to let her use a kiddy cart.   Except she came back with two, one for her and one for Jamie.  I should have stopped it right then, but I thought how bad could it possibly be?  I was a little bit delirious and high on the fact I didn’t have Charlie with me.   Without a spewing infant in my arms I can do anything.   Or not. 

Between Jamie’s shoplifting fingers and Julia’s ballerina moves that took out an old lady and her coupons, I’m pretty sure they never want to see us at that store again.   Jamie was ill fortuned enough to get the dastardly cart that doesn’t want to go straight but rather veers off suddenly without any provocation.   Even with my hand firmly planted on the flag pole thing (and heels skidding) he managed to take out two (and a half) displays of food.   The employee who got assigned the clean up looked really annoyed, until Julia ran into him full force (it’s not my fault she and Jamie were holding races up and down the cereal aisle), thats when he kinda turned purple and started sputtering and I decided to make a break for it while the getting was good.     How I managed to corral both those children and all the groceries through the checkout aisle and into the car is a mystery to me.   
I forgot half the stuff on my list.
Julia and Jamie said it’s the most fun they’ve ever had at the grocery store. 

Impish no? 

Always impish.

As promised…

Baby Lucas

Jamie wanted to take him home.  I told him we already have enough baby going on in our house, he said this one could be his.

Charlie talks when he cries, or more like pleads desperately with every fiber of his being.   Jamie at this age was much more opinionated; definite in his opinion.  His cry sounded like “I-officially-am-pissed-off-and-somebody-better-pick-me-up-before-I-spew-rotten-milk-out-of-my-nostrils” ,  Charlie is much less confident and much more eloquent, “pleeease-pick-me-up-and-I-promise-I-will-never-chew-on-your-shoes-again”.
   Coming from either one it’s equally charming or hair tearing, depending on how much caffeine I’ve ingested for the day, or how long they’ve napped.  … Or today when I’m waiting by the phone for any news from either parent or doctor. 

Encouraging news when it did finally come.  I would have found it devastating a few days ago, but in light of last night when we thought my mom might have liver cancer on top of leukemia of something, today’s news seemed almost wonderful.   Her ct scan went well.  No tumors, her lymph nodes looked great, everything looked fine except for her ginormous spleen that is taking over her abdominal cavity and annoying the hell out of her liver.   After the hematologist looked over all the bloodwork, ultrasound and ct scan he concluded that it *might* not be leukemia afte all.  It might be that her spleen pooped out and she got some sort of gnarly virus like epstein barr or cmv which wrecked all this havoc.   And that’s what we’re all choosing to believe and praying for until Monday when we get the results back of all the tests she took today. 

To change the subject…
On Monday I did the follow up to that maternity shoot I did last month, this time it included the sweet, adorable little baby on the outside.   My goal is to blog about it tomorrow (the goal was today but I haven’t even looked at the pictures yet).  I did grab this one of Jamie though because it was cracking me up he suddenly wanted to be a part of the photoshoot.  The kid hates his picture being taken and he’s never been jealous of Charlie, but on Monday he saw baby Lucas tearing it up, and he had to join in the fun.
His best interpretation of melodrama.

I just left a bright voicemail on my dad’s phone  “Hey dad, this is Esther, <insert cheery voice>  the dr called and they can’t tell if mom’s spleen is so large it’s growing into her liver or her liver itself has some sort of tumor on it, but she needs a ct scan before the bone marrow biopsy tomorrow so I went ahead and scheduled it for 8 am.”
  You’d think I’d just bought freaking tickets to disneyland or something.   Apparently I am devoid of human emotion.  Either that or I am some sort of sick individual who gets their kicks from bad news.

Jim says I’m a pessimist.  I call it realism, but you have to admit that any way you slice it, a low functioning liver, enlarged spleen and ominous bloodwork is never a very encouraging sign;  And certainly something you don’t want to hear in connection with your own mother.   The possible causes range from kickass viruses to luekemia to something called hemocratic anemia which apparently an insidious autoimmnune disease where your body attacks it’s own blood.   They (the powers that be) have all but ruled out the last one, and probably the first one, which leaves us with the middle one, but I’m not hazarding any guesses or predictions until I see a positive biopsy.  

Until then, I will continue to make green smoothies for her.  Both fridges are stuffed with more organic produce than a farmers market. the counters and cupboards are covered in vegetable peels and green juice splatters.  The last delectable treat I made was a spinach-avocado-tomato-broccoli-cabbage-carrot smoothie with a splash of lemon juice.   Yummy (it really was actually).     But I’m thinking it’s going to take more than my new found love of juicing vegetables to make my mom well.

So if you guys think about it, prayers would be greatly appreciated.