MRI Update

Just a quick post to let everyone know what little I found out at the oncologist on Monday. Right now it looks as though I will need another six week round of radiation. The good news is (was there good news?) that the doctor has said that I can put off starting the treatment until just after the holidays. That is good not just because the holidays would be hard if I was feeling awful from the treatment, but also because to get the radiation the girls and I are going to have to move to Iowa City (more than three hours away) for the six weeks.

There is still a lot we don't know yet and I will update this as soon as I know any more.

Thanks to everyone for their good wishes. It means the world to me.

Emily turns four!

Even as I write these words I can't imagine that I have a child that is four years old. How could that possibly be? It is only made worse by the fact that Claudia looks so much like Emily did at 18 months and so I seem to be reliving Emily’s babyhood at the same time that she is growing in to a school-age child in front of me.

On Sunday, the 30th, we got together with Eric's family for birthday party number one. Emily decided on an Eloise themed cake from a bakery for the event. Here she is looking longingly at the piece she picked out: Eloises face from the very center of the cake. Of course, why not that piece?

For some reason Blogger won't let me put the one of her sticking her face into the cake to eat it, so you'll just have to imagine that.

After we ate she opened gifts. Slippers are nice.

Birthday cards are... confusing? Painful? Personal attacks?


On Emily’s actual birthday, she opened the gifts from Eric, Claudia, and me. This was a small, understated affair that consisted of her taking possession of her own store, which she has lusted over for more than a year, since we went to the Omaha Children’s Museum.

She also received some dolls and doll clothes, which were also a big hit even though it sometimes seems as if every vertical surface in our home is covered in dolls and their gear. Because what every house full of real baby crap needs is a bunch of pretend baby crap.


On Saturday, Emily finally had her first “friends” birthday party after having to postpone it a week due to illness. There was nothing understated about this affair. It was a “Tea at the Plaza with Eloise” extravaganza. And, I think Eric put it best when he said, “Well, this is a real manly man party.”

The girls began with a scavenger hunt for boxes containing different dress up items. Once they collected them all, the girls gathered at a large, tulle covered mirror to dress for the tea party.



The glint of the sun off the mock-rhinestone jewelry was blinding.

Once dressed, the girls enjoyed a spot of tea.

Next came the gift opening. I have never given a child's party before and I must say that we had a stroke of good luck here. When it came time to open the gifts, the party girls were looking a little ticked off that Emily planned on keeping what they had brought for her, so we decided that it was a fine time to hand out the goodie bags, which in this case were pink hat boxes filled with little china tea sets and other treasures for the girls to take home. Emily got to open her gifts and the guests got to open their. Everyone was happy.

Lastly, each girl got to decorate her own five-inch cake. The results of all the piped frosting, colored sugar, and sprinkles mounded on top of the small cakes was more than a little nauseating for the adults present. All the girls got to eat one slice of their cake and then the rest was sent home with them in a bakery box with personalized label and tied with a ribbon. Well, all the girls except Emily had one slice. Emily dumped her frosting and sugar into a mountain on her cake and then dug into the center with a fork. Is it just me or is there a theme of bad cake manners here?

A blog AND a digital camera? God help us all!

For my birthday I got a digital camera and so I have been documenting everything in our lives since then. While it isn't what I would call an exciting life, it is a full one.

This week:

A) We all continued to be sick and grumpy, but there were moments of comforting kindness to be found here and there.

B) Emily and Claudia rediscovered the joy of suckers. Sadly, Emily has yet to master the precise art of headband wearing, which drives me crazy.

C) Claudia continued to enjoy the freedom of being able to feed herself. These pictures are from two separate meals but on the same day.

D) We took in my nephew Ryan's elementary school football game with our dear friend, Evie. I am not just "not a fan" of sports; I loathe sports. But I do get a kick out of all of the ten year-olds out there in their giant pads.

E) And, lastly, Thursday night we took part in the Belmond Fire Department Open House by riding around town on top of a fire truck in the 20-something degree weather. This is life on the edge in a small town, hanging perilously off an engine cruising down Main Street in the dark.

I blame Martha

The week before last it seems that Emily mentioned to me that she'd like to have a little tea party in the park someday. While that may be what she said, what I heard was Martha Stewart in my ear singing siren songs of fruit kabobs and sandwiches in the shape of flowers.

This was no little tea party in the park. This was a move furniture, set up tents, bake homemade brownies until midnight the night before kind of shebang.

Lanette was kind enough to bring her camera to document the entire thing for use in my commitment trial.

Exhibit 1: Emily who probably just wanted PB&J and juice at the park, but she is kind to put up with her mother's over-the-topness.

Exhibit 2: The girls mid tea party.

Exhibit 3: The girls are joined at last by Carson who was invited and was at the park the entire time but who, once he saw the table said, "Wait a minute. Is this some kind of TEA party? No way!" And off he went to do rough and tumble "boy things" until the girls lured him back with fruit kabobs. Ah, sweet, sweet fruit kabobs. Is there no end to their power?

I have no idea why Emily is making that face, but I do know that it wasn't because Carson joined them. We haven't gotten to the cootie stage yet.

By the way, in the background please notice my fabulous $700 van. I just realized tonight that we got it two years ago and it still runs if not exactly like a dream then at least far from a nightmare. I say, $700 well spent!

Some people get a great deal of pleasure showing off their expensive things, I am perhaps a bit too far the other way. If I could piece together a mode of transportation for free it would make my year. I am doing pretty well so far since my bike and the trailer together were only $21. Anyway, back to the tea party.

Exhibit 4: Claudia who was not invited to the kid's table but instead had to sit with the moms until the big kids went off to play and only then could she sneak over and knock down all the teapots and cup in protest for such shabby treatment.

Scenes from a garage sale

Imagine someone you love and trust goes through your things while you’re sleeping. This person paws your things looking at them not with the sentimental look of adoration you would, but with a cold, critical eye. This person sees only the scuffmarks and tears, not the memories of the past and the potential for the future.

Once through your things, this loved one goes back, gathers up what he/she wants and takes it away. Sure you don’t realize immediately what things are gone—your grandfather’s pocket watch, that DVD that you love but haven’t watched in months, that sweater that makes you look like you have breasts or that you are 10 lbs. thinner, or both—you don’t realize they are gone but you loved those things, and you will be heartbroken when their absence registers.

Now, still oblivious to the betrayal, you join your loved one for what you think will just be a fun day out at a friend’s house, but you are wrong. Instead, you are forced to watch strangers buy your things and carry them out of your sight. You are powerless to stop any of it. You feel as though parts of you are being ripped away.

That’s what Friday must have been like for Emily, except that the things I took to sell included unused baby toys, torn pop-up tents, and rarely watched Blue’s Clues videos that might cause ADHD.

Nonetheless, her gut wrenching screams of, “That’s my stuff! They cannot have it! THAT’S! NOT! FOR! SALE!” echoed throughout Belmond this weekend as though I were selling off her body parts. Despite my best efforts to quiet her she pled with me, breathless and panicked, “Mommy… get that back. Please, I need it. I play with it all the time. Please, please, please Mommy.” She tried to force herself from my arms to chase down the shoppers like they were her family going in another line at Auschwitz, hands reaching out, tears streaming.

It is only because Emily treats every event lately like she is being carried off to a death camp that I can watch her act like this and continue doing whatever thing it is that is causing her heartbreak. So, I held her with one hand and sold her things with the other, and soon she was over it enough to eat donuts and play with the other kids.

I did, however, notice last night when we were with my in-laws and they asked her about the sale that she had this weird sort of expression on her face that reminded me of the one that my brother used to get after he’d been removed from a situation, spanked for misbehaving, and retuned. It was this look like something awful had happened to her and she had accepted it but that it was maybe even worse that the adults in her life could sit around talking about her assault like it was okay, that really bothered her. Or maybe she was just tired and I’m not as over it as I thought I was.

Had I really done this awful thing to her? I would feel an awful betrayal if Eric sold my things. Does it seem weird to anyone that we do things to our kids that we wouldn’t want done to us? Would absolutely everything I do as a parent seem this strange if I over thought it this much?

This was my first garage sale experience as a mom (having one that is) and my child was the only one out of all the families there that had a problem with it, so this time I’ll chalk it up to tired child and even-more-tired-mom. Because, despite Emily’s best efforts I sold her things, and mine too, and the sale was a success.

Movin' on

I have, thus far, received nothing but lovely comments about my insane, pointless ramblings on this site. But, because I feel a bad subjecting the innocent people who come here just to look at pictures and receive updates of the girls to my aforementioned musings, I have decided to move them, the musings, not the girls, to a new site.

What is it that Abraham Lincoln once said? “It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” Yeah, that’s not happening.

Anyway, if you think that it may be your cup of tea, or if you just want to laugh behind my back at what a loser I am, feel free to visit http://katesasterisk.blogspot.com/

In a funny side note, I looked up the meaning of “musings” earlier when I was writing this to make sure that it was an appropriate word. It turns out that it is absolutely not, at least not in this context.

mus·ing (my z ng)
n.
1. A product of contemplation; a thought. “an elegant tapestry
of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections” (James Atlas).

I am nothing, if not capable of an elegant tapestry of autobiographical reflections.

When I grow up

There was this funny game that we played at my bridal shower, lo those many years ago. The hostess, Miranda, called Eric up before hand and asked him a series of questions about us as individuals and as a couple. The point of the game was, I think, to show us that even after living together for eight years we didn’t know each other at all, and therefore we had no business getting married.

Or, maybe it was just for fun.

Anyway, one of the questions she asked was, “ What has Kate always wanted to be?”

The correct answer, and the one I gave, was, “A writer.”

The answer Eric gave? “James Taylor’s wife.”

I was thinking about this recently because Emily has started school (I know, I know, it is just one half day a week, but still) and I was trying to imagine what I would do as a job once the kids were both in school. Eric is pretty nice about the not holding down a job thing now, but I bet once there are no kids at home all day he’ll be expecting me to contribute a little. Between my little and odd experience and the small town, the choices are a bit limited.

And so I started thinking about what I wished I could do. I love writing, but it isn’t exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. First of all, liking something and being able to do that something are two very different things. Second, being a writer didn’t seem like the kind of thing that real people did for a living. It seemed like the kind of thing unreal people, famous writers I would never meet, did. And so it seemed that writing was out, through no fault of my own.

But then, a year or so ago a friend of mine published a book, and I don’t mean that she printed it out at Kinko’s, nor did she even do some self-publishing thing on the Internet. She really published a real book. And there were reviews and reading tours and all sorts of writer-like things.

I would religiously follow her blog and think, “Aw man, now she’s reading in New York City and drinking at artsy bars and all with her baby in tow. Why can’t I be reading and drinking and artsy?” There were all the drawn out details of all it took to be her. She was constantly posting reviews and reading schedules and letters she’d received, and it all seemed like a little much for me.

And so, the problem, I think, is twofold. It’s true that to actually be a writer I would have to be smarter than I am, a far better writer than I am, more interesting than I am and um… actually having something to say might be good too. Oh, and spelling and grammar might help.

But, it is clear from her blog that I would also have to be driven and self-promoting, two of the many things I am not, things, in fact, I could never do. So, maybe the fact that I’ll never be a writer really is beyond my control. But, I am not without options.

Does anyone know if James Taylor is available?