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i know, i know, i have been seriously blog-negligent. if you’re really getting desperate during one of my unforseen hiatuses, just check my twitter feed on the left sidebar under “tweet, tweet.” that should entertain you.
so, after nugget’s tantie left, her aunt katie and uncle “hibbip” (phillip) came for a visit. nuggetdaddy and i made it up for jenny’s show in alexandria. then my mom from florida came for her turn at casa de bits. nuggetdaddy and i both celebrated birthdays.
now, i’m back in the hospital enjoying a week of chemo, hopefully my last before my transplant. my pet scan was good. the report says “virtually no (cancer cell) activity,” that the site of involvement is “1/2 to 1/3 the size” from the previous scan and there is “comparably less (lymph) nodal involvement.”
i’ve just had 10mg of ambien, so i should be checking out soon. i’ll try to blog again in the morning. peace!
it’s difficult keeping up with a toddler all day. it’s really difficult when you have cancer. we have to start doing something different, for everyone’s sanity. sure, people come to help, here and there, but it isn’t enough. there are simply too many days when i can’t manage on my own. we’ve got to find a solution.
we’re working on plans right now, plans for our house, plans for our lives, plans for my treatment. it’s challenging figuring out how all the pieces of each individual puzzle are going to fit into the big picture.
we have to start splitting our time between here and there, “here” being where we live and “there” being where we will live. down there we’ll be with my parents who will help with nugget and nugget daddy won’t have to “commute” two and a half hours. i’ll be able to keep an eye on the house construction and bring a steady flow of coffee and doughnuts to the site. up here i’ll continue with my treatment at my oncologist and we’ll keep nugget happily enrolled in her gymboree class.
tomorrow is my birthday. so come life, let’s see what plans you’ve got for me this year.
at thursday’s chemo i got the results of last week’s ct and pet scans. both scans were clear! this is excellent news. it means that i will finish out my six cycles of abvd, get scanned again, and as long as everything is still clear i will not have to do any radiation.
nugget had her arm x-rayed thursday before i went to chemo and her degree of fracture has gone from three to thirteen. while still within the acceptable range for her age, we’re hoping to see some improvement at next week’s x-ray. if it gets over fifteen degrees then they’ll have to remove her cast and set it. my poor baby girl!
this week, nugget’s grandma nettie is here visiting. they’re having a most excellent time playing together! this morning we got some super cute photos of nugget that i’ll be sure to post sometime next week.
nugget’s tantie sent me the most delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies this week. i’ve put nugget daddy under strict orders not to eat them all.
last week nugget’s grandmamie and grandad celebrated their twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. wow! grandad’s birthday was also celebrated and next week is nugget daddy’s birthday and my birthday. squee! we’re really busy with the gifting in august. i’m hoping to take nugget daddy to dinner and a movie, the x-files: i want to believe. i asked for a party. we’ll see what actually happens.
my dear, sweet friend, krista, is getting married today in california. it breaks my heart that i’m not able to be there to share her special day. i can’t wait to see all the pictures and hear all about her and jeff’s fabulous honeymoon in greece. i wish them both a lifetime of happiness together!
nugget is very interested in language. this week she’s perfected “up” and is working hard on “bug” and “duck.” last night she signed “more” without prompting and it was the best i’ve ever seen her do it. 
maybe we’ll try the baby einstein my first signs dvd again. usually she’s completely unimpressed by baby einstein, but i keep holding on to the idea that one day she’ll enjoy it. that’s what everyone keeps telling me anyhow.
that’s right, i’m willing to rot my child’s brain with television. i know, i know, so not crunchy-ap-hippie-earth-mama-y. i’m sure i just lost ten granola points.
nugget would much prefer i vod her some jack’s big music show. smartly, noggin added an additional show to their daily lineup. but since it’s only twenty minutes long, and sometimes mommy needs more than forty minutes a day of semi-quiet, i’m most grateful that it’s also available on demand.
our local toy store called this morning to ask if we were done with la nug’s birthday basket in their birthday vault. nuggetdaddy said we’d come by today or tomorrow to pick out a few things from it. well, okay, he said we’d come by but i don’t think he meant that we’d necessarily be purchasing anything. silly nuggetdaddy! despite it being unpleasantly cold this afternoon, i decided we’d go ahead and stroll over there. nugget made out like a bandit. she got three books, a maraca, a ladybug ball and a froggy nailbrush for bathroom. fine, the nailbrush is for me.
we also grabbed a few items from from the clearance table. a set of boikido musical blocks that were in her birthday basket were actually on the sale table too, so those came home with us along with two small gifts for her tantie and auntie. they’ll be stocking stuffers. nooo, it’s not too early to be christmas shopping. oompa stopped carrying boikido products, citing inferior qualtiy and customer dissatisfaction. i’ll be keeping the receipt handy just in case. they look very similar to the haba fantasy blocks tantie gave her and she loves those. we’ll have to see how these hold up.
after the toy store we strolled across the plaza to the grocery store. of course the one prescription i needed refilled was the only one i hadn’t gotten from the allergy/asthma specialist. whatever. breathing is so overrated. as i browsed the aisles for dinner ideas while waiting for the pharmacy, nugget decided to sack out in her stroller, ladybug ball clutched firmly to her chest. hilarious! no wonder so many people had been looking at her. i thought they were just admiring her regular everyday cuteness, but this was quite the spectacle. she’s still asleep in her stroller and snowsuit, parked next to nuggetdaddy’s home office desk. i can only hope that this becomes a new habit for her!
i settled on ground beef and fingerling potatoes at the market. i have serrano ham left over from the birthday party that i’m going to wrap beef patties in and i’ll sprinkle the potatoes with pecorino before roasting them.
yellow cake with chocolate fudge frosting
i like tomatoes to taste like tomatoes. wintertime tomatoes are always risky. will they taste like summer? no. will they taste like cardboard? i sure hope not. these at least smell like tomatoes. they were the best i could find, so they’ll really just have to do. they’ll be making their way into tomato, mozzarella and basil paninis.
in addition to these little beauties, i have six pounds of plum tomatoes that tomorrow will magically transform into a lovely pappa pomodoro. we’ll be celebrating nugget’s birthday and i have so much to do. at least i’ve managed to bake the cupcakes and make the “baby party mix,” which nugget declared most acceptable.
“one moment in her presence and you can forget the rest. for the girl is second best to none…”
a year ago, today we welcomed our daughter into the world. she had already been a part of our world for months, but this, this was her big debut.
it was scary. it hurt. a lot. a whole lot. nothing went according to any of the well thought out plans, not a, b or c. there were drugs, fevers, emergencies, scalpels, no time for tears or fears and then, plenty. slice. pull. snip. and just like that, our star was born.
her ten tiny toes, her perfect mouth, her little hands that held on to our fingers, they were all small miracles. the sum of her parts, she was the biggest miracle of them all. did all of these people swarming around us
know? did they know she was the one? the one of so many infertility treatments, the one ivf protocol that finally worked? the one embryo that implanted? the only one that would ever be a baby in our arms? the one dream that we dreamt for oh-so-long that finally came true? we knew.
the 365 days that followed helped fade some of my feelings over the whole experience, how it all shook down that day and over the week that we spent there. or maybe now i just don’t have the time and energy to fixate on those memories. i’m too busy chasing after nugget, picking up her toys, reading her story after story, too busy being her mommy. and i love every single moment of it; i live for it.
“she’s the one.”
today i tied bows for my daughter’s first birthday party invitations. there will be cake and ice cream, balloons and presents with bows. there will be singing, giggling, champagne toasts and tears. i hope it will be everything my little girl could dream of, if she knew to dream of these things. she is everything i have ever dreamt of, my every birthday wish come true.
bits of myself 
whatchoo talkin’ ’bout?