Passover/Easter Fun

We celebrated both Easter and Passover in our house this year. Actually, we mainly just celebrated that it is now SPRING!!!

Mason and I made Easter cookies. He decided that licking frosting off your fingers is the best. thing. ever.

This is the afikoman cover Mason made at daycare.  We had fun hiding it around the house for him...and he had fun searching for it. He also thought it was fun to "hide" the afikoman in his mouth.

P.S. The afikoman is a piece of matzo.

 And Nana decided to have "the kids" over to her house for egg decorating. He came home happy as a clam with a dozen colored eggs, ten colored fingers, and lots of stories to tell. The Easter Bunny also went to Nana's house this year, and, no surprise here, spoiled Mason and Landon both rotten as ever.

I love that in this picture Landon's hands are virtually spotless. This does not surprise anyone in our family. 

A Little More Human

I have been sick all this week. It actually started a little over a week ago, just the scratchy throat feeling like my sinuses were acting up. Mason had been sick the week before, so I wasn't really surprised. Then on Monday at work, my voice started to crack and sound something like a 12 year old boy sounds like, and by Monday night it was pretty bad. Tuesday morning I woke up with no voice at all, but I actually didn't feel too terrible.

By Thursday when I still didn't have a voice, and was starting to feel like complete garbage, I went to the doctor. She put me on antibiotics, gave me some super strong cough syrup, and sent me on my way. Today is Saturday and I'm just barely starting to feel a little better. My voice is back, although it still sounds deep and nasally. I'm not sure if the antibiotics are doing anything yet or not, but they sure do make me feel sick to my stomach.

All I really want to do is stay in bed and sleep, maybe wake up long enough to catch up on some Real Housewives drama on Bravo. My reality, unfortunately, is that Todd is at work all weekend so I'm left at home with Mason. Luckily, he's been fun and happy...and he's of course thrilled when I let him watch a movie at night (little does he know it's actually for my own lazy benefit)...but he isn't very sensitive to the fact that Mommy feels like crap! He can always manage to make me smile, though, like earlier this week when he was rather interested with where Mommy's voice went, and tried to find it for me.

Wee Bit Wednesday 1

This is just a fun new thing I thought I would try. We'll see how often I actually get it done on a Wednesday :) 

{one} how often do you do laundry?Usually just once a week. With my new HUGE washer and dryer,I can fit so many clothes in one load it has really cut downof the number of loads I have to do.
{two} what is your favorite type of cookie?That's a tough one. Macaroons, probably. But mymom makes AMAZING snickerdoodles.
{three} what would you do with an extra $2000 per month?Wow, I don't really know. I'm boring, I'd probably save it.
{four} what was/is your favorite subject in school?I always loved English/Literature. But I really liked biology, too.
{five} have you ever ridden in a hot air balloon?No, and I can't say I've ever wanted to.
{six} what was your high school mascot?Thunderbirds
{seven} if you had the chance to go into space, would you?Probably not. I have a hard enough time just flying oncommercial flights for vacations.
{eight} how often do you go dancing?Never. I used to go out ALL the time, but that was probably 10 years ago. I do dance regularlyaround the house, though, and with Mason.
{nine} would you rather drive or fly?If I lived anywhere other than Alaska, this answerwould be drive. Living here pretty much forces you to fly if you actually want to go somewhere.
{ten} have you ever been caught re-gifting?Not yet...

How time flies by

This year will be our fifth wedding anniversary. But before we get to that milestone, I'm always reminded that we lost Todd's parents in the months before our wedding. Today marks five years since Todd's dad died, and in July it will be five years since his mom's passing. I know I bitch sometimes, ok, maybe a lot, about Todd's family and how their family dynamic is so different than mine, but I can't help but wonder if it would be different if his parents were still alive. I can't imagine how awful it will be when I have to go through losing my parents, and I need to remember how blessed I am to have them around and have such a great relationship with them. It always makes me sad to think that Mason is missing out on getting to know his Grandpa Don and Grandma Pat. I hope they are both in a better place, as cliche as that sounds, and that they are at peace. I also hope they know they are loved, and missed, and thought of often.

Gorilla Park

Down the bike trail from our house is a little park with just one swing and two big gorilla statues. This used to be across from a bunch of AK Housing apartments, which were all recently torn down. Any time we drive down C Street, Mason talks about the excavators, and I've been promising him to go see them for weeks.

Today after breakfast all five of us (three people and two pups) went for a walk. Here's how Mason describes how to get to "gorilla park". Go down street, over bridge, by the water, by the other bridge, under the tunnel, over next bridge and there they are!

We had a lot of fun on the tire swing and of course walking around the excavators and the loader. Mason never ceases to amaze me with his knowledge and memory of construction equipment. He knows all the correct terms, and will absolutely correct you if you call something the wrong name.

Checking out the gorillas

Fun on the tire swing

Look at those tracks!

Mason and Daddy in the big scoop

Mason brought his little excavator along, too

All of us in the excavator bucket

The dogs, waiting patiently 

Our happy boy

This boot was made for walking

Even with the super annoying boot I've been forced to wear since being run over with a gurney in the OR (ok, that was slightly dramatic, but whatever) I managed to still do the Walk MS this year. The weather was GORGEOUS this year and I'm so proud to report that Team Hope raised $5000!

Mason was in and out of the stroller the entire walk, but he did great. He was totally into all the airplanes on Lake Hood, and was excited to see a couple take off from the runway. Only in Alaska would a walk have to stop to let a plane go by!

I know I say this every year, but I am so overwhelmed by the love and support of our family and friends every year. Thank you all who donated, and thank you all who came out and walked for our team. So many people aren't as fortunate as I am to have such an amazing support system, and sometimes I need to be reminded of just how lucky I truly am.

My baby brother. His sign says "I walk for my sister"

Mason's friend Ashe and his daddy came

Mason and Todd running around 

My sweet boy. His shirt says
"I wear orange for my mommy"

Trying to get that kid to look at the
camera is impossible sometimes! 

The kids all got balloon animals after
the walk. Mason and Haily each got monkeys.

Ashton and his alien

Me and my boys

Finally looking at the camera and it's the
most phallic shot ever! Ugh!

Sticking out his tongue like monkey

Couldn't get everyone together for a picture, but
here is some of Team Hope. Check out Mason, what
a bookworm! Just like his mama :) 

Sweet Girl

This past February, my sweet Sierra girl turned 10. I cannot believe I've had this dog for ten years! It seems like a lifetime ago that I brought her home, and in many ways, it really was. So many things have changed in my life, but she has been through it all with me, and she's taken (most) all of it in stride. I still don't think she'll ever forgive me for bringing home a pug puppy a few years ago, but I'm pretty sure we made up for that once we brought Mason home for her.

Sleepy

It is now 11:13pm and I am still awake. I'm not exactly sure how this happened, and I'm definitely not happy about it. For some crazy reason this happens to me sometimes, this random insomnia. I am so tired and would love nothing more than to be asleep right now....but, alas, sleep escapes me. The worst part is that the longer I'm awake, the more frustrated I am that I'm not sleeping, which just makes me even less likely to get any sleep.

Normally when this has happened in the past I just take a little Benadryl or something to help me sleep. Tonight that isn't really an option for me because Todd is at work (probably getting more sleep than I am). I suppose if there is a silver lining here it's that I don't have to work tomorrow. And, in fact, all I really have planned tomorrow is taking Mason to daycare. So now I guess my plans will me take Mason to daycare and take a nap.

Hope you all are having sweet dreams.

Watch where you're going!

Wednesday was another normal day at work for me. I was assigned to the OR (as usual) and things were going pretty smoothly...until I was run into by someone pushing a patient on a gurney. It hit me right on the back/outer side of my right ankle. I usually like to think I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but this literally made me break out into an immediate sweat. 

I initially wasn't going to get it checked out, I just iced it and filled out my employee incident report. Unfortunately, it just kept hurting more and more, so yesterday I had it looked at. 

Not much to report at this point. I was given a boot to wear for when I'm out or at work, but I can stop wearing it if it makes things worse or gets in my way too much. I go back in two weeks to have it checked again. I'm hoping it will be just fine by then, but the PA I saw isn't planning on it. She thinks it will be sore for up to 8 weeks. If in two weeks, though, it isn't "significantly" better, she'll order an MRI and go from there. 

In the mean time, I'll hobble around with my silly boot on, keep ice on it and watch out for those run away gurneys. 

Good old brother/sister bonding

A couple of weeks ago, Todd and I went bowling with my baby brother, Cameron and his girlfriend, Sarah. It really was a lot of fun, and of course it was an awesome opportunity to embarrass my brother in public. And to make it even better, his girlfriend joined in on the fun, too. Of course, the best part of the whole evening was that I had the high score for the night! Whoohoo!

The photo quality sucks, but it was neon bowling
and I only had my iPhone. Oh well, still a cute shot!

Just had to document this

Breaking my heart, kid

I know he doesn't know what he's reading, but this seriously broke my heart tonight. Mason always "reads" in his car seat and I had honestly forgotten this was in my car.

As much as I've come to terms with my MS diagnosis, I HATE that Mason has a mommy with MS.

This blog post brought to you by the letter C

I posted this on Twitter today, but needed to share it again. Mason and I would like to formally thank the makers of the movie Cars as well as the MacBook Pro for allowing Mommy the time this morning to shower, shave my legs, dry AND straighten my hair.

And as my shoe shopping BFF Amanda (yes, seriously, we have the same name, I'm not talking about myself) pointed out, only my child would be watching his movie with the laptop sitting on a shoebox.

I should probably clarify as well that in mine and Todd's bathroom, it's kind of a walk-in closet/bathroom combined so while he is sitting in the "closet" he wasn't in there alone. This is probably more important to me because I already feel slightly guilty that I plopped him in front of a movie. I swore I would never do that...and then I had a 2 year old and needed to shave my legs.

Whine Baby

I feel like I've been a total whine baby lately. So I would like to take this moment to apologize, especially to my co-workers. I try extremely hard to not whine about my symptoms, but sometimes they definitely get the better of me. This week has been one of those weeks for sure. Typically, unless you are my husband, you won't see me cry or hear me moan and complain about having MS. I do sometimes (like today) use this blog as a way to vent, but even this is pretty rare.

To be honest, my husband would probably say that I don't really cry or bitch to him either, but he knows me well enough to know when I'm feeling scared or sad or just frustrated about life with MS. The problem is that I just say "My leg hurts" or "I'm exhausted today". What I don't say is that after I have worked, taken care of Mason, cooked dinner, cleaned up after dinner, done the dishes, packed Mason's lunch for tomorrow, etc. I barely have the energy in my legs to fell like I can walk downstairs to play with Mason until bath and bed time. Sometimes it really feels like my legs won't carry me anymore. These are the things I don't say, mainly because a) what good does it do and b) no one really understands anyway.

So, yea, I'm tired. I've been working on this, experimenting with different things to try and improve my fatigue. Provigil (an expensive prescription medication) doesn't really help much. I've been taking a B-6 complex for the past month and a half, which seems to help a little. I take a lot of naps, but sometimes this actually seems to make things worse because I get overheated during my nap and wake up worse than I was before. I've been sleeping that extra 20 minutes or so I usually have to spend straightening my hair in the mornings and letting it be curly. I sit in front of a fan at work a lot, and always have ice water or an ice pack near by. And in the past couple of weeks I have actually broken down and let myself use my handicapped parking placard. These all seem like little things, but I'm learning that the little things are what seem to make the biggest differences. This is what I need to realize, and accept as my new normal.

My neurologist just prescribed Ampyra, which is a new medication that is supposed to improve walking in MS patients. I don't have the typical problems that he would normally prescribe it for, according to the neurologist, but he feels like because I'm stubborn and "not that bad" (my words being fed back to me) I push it and end up doing too much. It's an ordeal to get the meds, so I haven't started yet (they're mail order pharmacy only) but we'll see. It doesn't help everyone, but I'm going to give it about a 6-8 week trial. The Catch-22 with it is that I'm almost afraid it will work TOO well and when I go back to Chicago my EDSS will have gone back down. I know this seems weird, who wouldn't want their EDSS to go down, right? The thing is, I know it's only a temporary fix, and it certainly isn't taking care of the actual problem. If my EDSS is the same as it was in December, I have the chance to receive a stem cell transplant which is the only thing right now showing any promise of curing and reversing MS. (I absolutely do not buy into the CCSVI thing, and no neurologist, radiologist or neurosurgeon I know and trust does either)

I am very much a quit your bitching and fix it kind of person, and not just with myself, but with everyone around me as well. I guess this is one of the biggest reasons MS is so hard for me to get my head wrapped around. I can't fix it, but I can ALWAYS find plenty of things to bitch about when it comes to MS! But I feel guilty bitching, I know so many people have it so much worse than I do, with things worse than MS. I see people on a daily basis who are dying of cancer, or who are taking care of their dying child, parent or spouse. I also see people on a daily basis who are so incredibly bitter about their fight, and I NEVER want to be that person. I strive everyday to make freaking lemonade out of the batch of lemons life has dealt me. The worst thing anyone has every said to me about having MS was right after I was first diagnosed, and it has stuck with me. It was horrifying, and I was so angry. A nurse at work was going on and on about neurological stuff, and MS came up. She told me she'd rather have cancer than MS because at least with cancer there's the promise of death. I still hold to my original feeling when I heard this, that I would rather not die...but I do kind of understand the sentiment a little better now. What I think she meant is at least with cancer there's an answer, a prognosis, a treatment...basically, a plan. With MS there is none of that. Just questions, doubts, and the unknown.

So, back to my original point of this post. I'm sorry for being a whine baby lately.

Like father, like son

I've been meaning to post on the latest Anchorage Symphony performance. Quite honestly, I don't have the words.

Dave Brubeck has been one of my favorite composers for many years, although, at times in high school trying to master "Take Five" he was my nemesis. He has absolutely passed on his amazing talent to his son, Chris Brubeck. A few years ago, ASO premiered Chris' piece called "Spontaneous Combustion", which he wrote for Nick Kendall (I'll get to Nick soon) and it was amazing. This time, Chris was back with Nick and ASO with "Travels in Time for Three". Amazing doesn't even begin to cover it. Seriously. Like I said, without words.

Back to Nick, or Violin Boy as he is affectionately called by myself and Mariah, or just VB for short. Any kid who ever went through Suzuki violin lessons has a tie to this kid...or at least his grandfather, who basically brought the Suzuki method to the U.S. Anyway, VB came back to Anchorage (his third (?) trip I think), this time bringing friends along for the ride. Time for Three + Chris Brubeck = me being without words (I know I've mentioned this a lot here, but I'm not sure you understand how incredibly rare it is that I find myself speechless)

Here's how I can sum up how much I loved Tf3 and this piece...I have (almost) forgotten about Randy's hair and how it still hasn't quite grown out enough. This is huge for me. HUGE!

Something old, something new

Last weekend was the Academy of Country Music award show. I've been waiting as patiently as I know how since then for a video of Zac Brown Band and James Taylor's performance to show up on the web. It's finally here and I have to share it. I love, love, love Zac Brown...and whoever decided to pair him up with James Taylor is my latest hero. It was definitely the high point of the award show.



And while I'm not a huge Taylor Swift fan, I do love this song. I can think of SO many people it has applied to over the years!