At this very moment Sharmi is sitting on her Daddy’s lap showing him pictures of her withWinnie the Pooh at Disney Land.  The Pooh characters were clearly her favorites with Cinderella coming in as a close second.  We had a good time, but is was very hot and Sharmi was completely drained of energy.  She was on steroids and she was scared of half of the rides we went on.  I wasn’t sure whether she was having a good time or not, but she enjoys talking about it now so it must have been a little bit fun.  One wonderful blessing is that when we told customer relations about Sharmi’s health they gave us a card that allowed us to go up the exits.  This made a significant difference in the day.  Sharmi was wiped out as is was,  it would have nearly killed her to stand in line all day.

The reason we went to California was to celebrate Dean’s sister and bother-in-laws surprise 25th wedding anniversary.  It was lovely and we enjoyed catching up with Dean’s family again.

Chantel became very efficient at crawling while we were at Whistler, so when I was packing for our California trip I would look down and she would be gone.  Her favorite things are the cat food, cat water, and a 7 foot artificial ficus tree that she has pulled over on herself three times.  If she can get outside she likes taking the dirt out of the tomato and basil pots.  Chantel has also fallen in love with drawing.  She  doesn’t care if it is a pen, crayon, pencil or doodle pen.  She loves drawing.  Friday she found a purple crayon and drew a picture on Sharmi’s step stool and on the white door frame in the girls bathroom.  As if I didn’t have enough messes to clean up.  :) 

With two vacations, company, vacation bible school and the effects of chemo and steroids Sharmi has been very short on sleep for the last several weeks.  She is very tired and emotionallyfragile.  My goal for the next month is to do nothing and to get them on a good sleep schedule again.  I miss the old days when I could just sing ”Jesus Loves Me” to Sharmi and put her in her crib, and then without a whimper she was off to sleep.  The day after her methotrexate this past week I spent 4 a full hours trying to get Sharmi to fall asleep.  Two hours in the afternoon trying to juggle Chantel and Sharmi, ultimatelyonly resulting in a 1/2 hour nap.  And then from 9:30 to 11:30 in the evening.  This was after Dean layed with her for a half hour and not starting the process until we hoped she was tired enough to go to sleep.  This is a huge challenge in out lives.

I hope you all had a good Sabbath.  I hope all is well with you and your family.

Love Cheris