It's funny. We have so much going on this week that I thought I'd never get a chance to logon. Instead, I find myself procrastinating by jumping into the debate forums or catching up on old posts!

I am tentatively going to offer up that spring *might* be arriving. It's still in the low 50's, but the sun is shining. It actually looks so warm outside that we've all been fooled into believing that it is warmer than it is! Monday, a friend of mine and I decided to meet up at the park for a play date with the kids. We wore light jackets and didn't think to bring gloves or mittens for the kids. After about 20 minutes of standing around shivering, Aidan finally came over to me crying because his hands hurt. We decided to move the play date to another day But hey....I still feel like mother nature didn't get the last laugh. Even though it started snowing as we were putting our kids in the car, we DID enjoy 20 minutes of pretending spring was here!

The older kids are really bummed about the weather. Andrew keeps asking me if I think it's going to snow again. Amanda is upset because her birthday is on Friday and we aren't expecting to break out of the 50's. "But it's my BIRTHDAY, Mom, my BIRTHDAY". I was talking to someone this morning who told me that based on previous bad winters like this we might have a shorter/cooler summer. I told her to bite her tongue!

Alex has been playing outside every day after kidstop/school. He seems impervious to the cold and wants nothing more than to sit on the dock now and wait for turtles. He is begging me to go out and buy him a new turtle net so that the summer games can begin.

Aidan cracked me up yesterday. I picked him up from preschool. They had been talking about jobs and the conversation went like this:

"Mommy, what job do you have?"
"Being a mommy is my job."
"No...what REAL job do you have?"
"Well, being your mommy IS a real job, Aidan."
"No. What job did you have a long, long, long time ago?"

hmmmm

"Well, I was...a teacher"
"You should get another job."
"Really. What job do you think I should get?"
"Chopping down trees."
"Oh...you think I would be good at chopping down trees?"
"Yes...or...stealing cars."


"Stealing cars? You think that would be a good job for me?"
"yes"
"but stealing isn't very good. I wouldn't want to be a bad guy and steal cars. Someone would be very sad if I stole their car."
"But MOMMY, if you steal a good car, then you can still be a good guy."

Ummm, Officer, I don't understand why you are upset. I stole the Mercedes, not that clunker over there. Aidan just cracks me up...but I'm still not sure that he understands that stealing cars isn't really a noble profession!

Zoe is finally starting to settle into some afternoon naps for about 45 minutes to an hour. This is huge for me. She is settling down right at the same time that Aidan is, so it give me an hour or so to just...relax!

Things feel like they are smoothing out for me again. I've been off of the steroids now for a couple of weeks and I'm back to getting more sleep (which I think was probably the greatest factor in my crabbiness!) It's taken about this long for me to feel like I'm evening out, but I am. Most days I'm feeling pretty good again emotionally.

We hurried the taper in part because we wanted to have steroid-free time for my CT scan, which was this morning at 8am. I didn't want to say anything about it in advance because I can't always count on getting the results quickly or even if I do sometimes I don't get a chance to pick up the phone or get online right away...so I didn't tell anyone (including my mom) until it was done. I've taken heat for not having the scan and then running out and calling everyone, so...I decided to do it this way.

As expected, the scan showed no evidence of recurrence. I think I can relax about it at this point. The only residual yuck to be seen are areas of fibrosis, which were visible and noted...again. Other than that...I'm good to go. Yay me! Probably the biggest connern that I had leading up to the scan this time was my weight gain. I really wasn't worried that the lymphoma was back...instead, I had some trouble falling asleep (and then woke up an hour earlier than I needed to) thinking that because I gained some weight on the steroids, I might not fit into the scanner. I guess it's a good sign that THAT was my biggest concern! The woman doing my scan has done several of them and she is probably twice my size...I got on the table and then said "You know, I've gained a little weight. I'm afraid I might not fit through it. Maybe we should...try before we do the iv (for contrast) and everything".

She started laughing. "Honey, you'd have to be at least twice your size before I'd even start worrying about that."

And ... she was right. [/quote]