Practice IV's

Catherine divides all of her medical visits into two categories: ones when she gets IV's and ones when she doesn't.  Everytime we go to a doctor now, she asks me if she is going to get an IV or not.

The girls love to play with the toy medical supplies we have.  They give each other and me physical exams almost daily.  Sometimes they will also give their Barbie dolls and stuffed animals physical exams.

Today Catherine pretended to put an IV in Sabrina's arm.  It was cute to overhear Catherine telling her "Hold your arm still.  It will only feel like a small pinch."

 Success!

Water Play

Sabrina could play with a big tub of water for a good hour or two.  This is one of my favorite activities to give Sabrina to do (she gets outside, she stays in one spot, any mess she makes will dry up in the sun, it's free, she needs no help or supervision ... heaven for me!).

I am not sure why, but Catherine is not very impressed with water play.  She only participates for a few minutes before she moves on to something else.

Awesome Weather

To celebrate the great weather we have had lately, I pulled Sabrina out of day care early and had the girls play outside. Catherine had just come from ballet class, so she was in costume and tried to show Sabrina how to plie:

The girls like playing with the large blocks:

But they LOVE playing with the box the large blocks are normally stored in:

Blowing Bubbles on the Driveway

I love the simple activities ... like the girls sitting on our driveway trying to figure out how to blow bubbles:

After Dinner Time

I love the times after dinner when the girls can just quietly play. The above picture is so precious to me because of the expression on Catherine's face. The "cookie shape" game was actually a gift for Sabrina. But, on that night Catherine got the game out and wanted to play with it. Sabrina wanted to join in, so she took some of the cookies. Catherine still had the majority of the cookies, but she was keeping a close eye on how many Sabrina had, lest she have to share too much.

That horse whinnies, shakes his head and wags his tail.

The peg game we purchased at Cracker Barrel is one of the best investments we have ever made. Both girls love it.

The cherry tree game - hours (OK, minutes) of fun! But, they can play with it every day and never get bored with it.

Letter Books

My Dad gave Sabrina a set of letter books for Christmas. There are so many of them!!! It will take years to learn all these letters!

Our "toy room" is really a sun room adjacent to our living room. It is too cold to spend much time in there in the winter, so it is basically a toy storage room. We let the kids bring out one or two toys at a time to play with. I actually like this policy, because then they pick up the toy they are playing with and we put it back before they get the next toy out. There have been times (in warmer weather) when we have just let them play in the toy room itself, unsupervised. Then they take down an unlimited number of toys and mix them all together, making clean up a monumental task. I may keep the toy storage room policy/limited toys for playing at a time policy when the weather gets warmer.

Calls from the School

On Friday while I was in court I had my cell phone turned on silent, but I could still see the calls I was receiving. Sabrina's school called about 10:30 in the morning, while I was in court waiting for my hearing. Sabrina's school, not Catherine's. There is never a problem with Sabrina - she is totally healthy. I immediately thought she must have taken a serious fall and suffered a significant injury.

So I made my way out of the courtroom to try to get the call as quickly as I could. But, the courtroom was packed. By the time I got to the hallway and could answer the call, the school's caller had hung up. I was still in a state of panic, frantic about what could have happened to Sabrina.

So I called the school back, but just got their voice mail. Ugh!! I checked my voice mail and did not have a message. I called back a few times and finally got through.

The receptionist at her school was calling all parents to tell us they were closing the school down at 2 p.m., rather than the regular 6:30 p.m. Atlanta was expecting a blizzard in the afternoon. Standing in the hallway of the court house, the weather looked absolutely fine. Not a single snowflake was falling at that point. But, they were closing her school down and I had to rearrange my afternoon hearings to be able to get them. (It did start sowing heavily about 1:30 p.m., so the early closure did turn out to be justified.)

Thankfully, my heart could stop pounding. Sabrina was fine. Why do I panic every time the schools call me in the middle of the day? Will I ever get over this?

I clearly remember the very first time I got a call from Catherine's school. Catherine was still on treatment and getting chemo every Monday. The first call I got from her school was on a Tuesday morning. I was in a state of panic as soon as I saw the name of her school on the telephone.

When I answered, the director of the school was calling me. Not one of her teachers. Not one of her nurses. Not one of the office staff.

The director calmed my nerves by immediately telling me that Catherine was fine. She was calling because she is a member of the prayer ministry at her church. Once a week she (like all the other volunteers) spends an hour in the prayer room and prays for members of the church. Apparently there are hundreds of prayer cards for people who have needs and each volunteer takes the next handful of cards for their hour.

That week the school's director, during her prayer hour, took the next handful of cards to pray for specific needs. Catherine's card was in that stack. Her card is actually several cards stapled together, because our church has been praying for her her for years.

The director had no idea that we went to the same church. It was such a wonderful discovery to find out Catherine's school's director not only attends the same church as we do, she is actively involved in their prayer ministry. She just had to tell me about this "coincidence."

So that call was wonderful news. When the phone rang, my heart jumped to the worst possible scenario. Why am I so filled with fear? Does Satan place those fears in my heart? Will they ever go away?

Just a Tuesday Night

Last night after dinner, I took some more pictures of just "ordinary times" with the girls. One of Catherine's favorite Christmas gifts is the Disney princess version of Yahtzee. She doesn't play the game according to any rules. Instead, she just plays with the parts all the time:

Sabrina playing with her talking computer screen:

I had to include a picture of our "Spot Bot." This fabulous machine will clean most spots off the carpet, with a six inch cleaning area. Last night Sabrina dropped her sippy cup of purple grape juice (I think the government needs to strengthen the testing requirements before a sippy cup can be labeled as "Spill Proof"). So, while the girls played, the Spot Bot cleaned Sabrina's spill - mostly.

Lastly, the Little People Noah's Ark game. You will note that Catherine is putting the Yahtzee princess chips in the ark, not the plastic animals.

"Ordinary Times"

One of the reasons I scrapbook and I blog is to remember our lives. Years from now I hope we will go through the blog and scrapbooks I have created and remember the precious times we had. Birthdays, holidays, trips, celebrations.

But I also thought I should include some "ordinary times" in our family. The evenings after dinner when we are sitting in our family room playing.

So, in that vein I have decided to start taking pictures of our daily life. I created a new section of my blog called "Ordinary Times" in which I hope to post pictures of our daily life. The "nothing special" times.

Of course these are the MOST special times. We are relaxed. We are not trying to impress guests. We are not trying to create or maintain holiday traditions. We are not trying to squeeze all the value we can out of a trip or outing. We are not at a hospital stressing about some procedure or test. We are just BEING.

Here is Sabrina, clearly after dinner (note the messy shirt and face). She is with two of her favorite toys: Elmo and the spinning gear toy. My brother and his family gave her that spinning gear toy, which at first seems to be surprisingly simple. All you do is push the button and the interlocking gears spin while music plays for ten seconds. Yet, Sabrina (and Catherine too) can play with that toy every day without tiring of it.

Catherine also loves puzzles and flashcards. This is one of her favorite sets, because she can make 26 completed "puzzles."

Both the girls love games. This version of Candy Land is special to us because it was a gift from Give Kids the World Village, where we stayed on our Make A Wish trip. Instead of the traditional areas on the Candy Land board, different sections of the Village appear. Catherine has finally figured out all the rules and will play the game "correctly." Sabrina still just grabs at things and moves the game pieces and colored cards around.