Good afternoon,

Sharmi is having a toddler rough morning.  Her sister is growing up and she is starting to see her as a play mate.  The problem however, is that Chantel is never where Sharmi wants her to be and she is never playing what and how Sharmi wants her too.  So Sharmi picks Chantel up and carries her where she wants to.  Chantel, now being able to walk, is not pleased about it at all.  I am not please that my baby is squealing when my eldest thinks it is her right to drag her sister around.  In the last two days, it seems that the more I try to “control” Sharmi and try to teach her not to hold her sister against her will the more Sharmi tries to hold her sister against her will.  She isn’t doing it to be mean, she just wants to treat her like a toy that she can control.  I think it will solve it self a little as Chantel gets older.  She is already trying to defend herself by pulling Sharmi’s hair and hitting.  It is actually kind of funny.   

Well, besides this morning we are doing pretty good.  We are getting ready to go on a trip to San Diego.  We are going go catch up with old friends and do the tourist thing.  Sharmi has a board with stamps on it which she has to fill up in order to go with us.  She earns the stickers to cover the stamps by going to sleep by herself.  She was really good at the beginning but she lost her momentum when she would rather have mommy and daddy lay with her.  Except for steroid week and Sabbath afternoon when daddy is home she is laying down for her naps by herself, but she hadn’t made any progress on bed time until this week.   The last 5 stickers had to be for sleeping by herself at bed time.  So this week I am insisting that she sleep by herself.  So far I have been in the room reading, but tonight I am sitting outside the door and hopefully by the time we leave I will be doing normal busy activities around the house while she sweetly slumbers by herself.  And then my real challenge will be to be tough about it when we get back.  It would be such a relief to our lives to not have to lay down with her all of the time. 

Last week was steroid week.  I was surprised at how long it took for her craving to ramp up.  The three weeks prior to her steroids she ate less than I ever remember her eating in her whole life.  She would eat three bits of cereal and say, “Mommy, I am done, I am full,.. look at my tummy it is going to pop… I am not hungry anymore.”  Her tummy was the flattest I had seen it.  She did have some degree of a cold for about 10 days, so that might have had something to do with it.  Come to think of it, her delay on eating probably had a lot to due with all of the drugs she took the beginning of last week.  Monday was the usual chemo at the hospital and the start of her steroids, but Tuesday she kept complaining of different things and asking for medicine.  At the end of the day I was amazed at everything she was on.

vincristine (chemo from Monday still in system), mercaptopurine (chemo), steroid, zantac (for stomach pain), antibiotic, zofran (for naseaua), tylenol with codine (for pain), oxycodone (for pain) swish and swallow (for throat pain) plus the calcium, vitamins, lactobacillus and camomille.  I would feel yucky after all of that as well.

However, come Thursday her appetite was back and she was craving egg noodles again.  She made up for lost time and ate a pound of egg noodles in two days.

Chantel is loving her new found freedom with walking.  We also had a little bit of a special day yesterday because Sharmi went over to the neighbors house to play and Chantel and I went shopping.  I was amazed at how calm and mellow Chantel was.  I think she could get used to alone time with mommy. 

Well, both kids are up and they are alternating between trying to push buttons on my computer and playing with a ball popper that is right next to me.  Both are annoying so I need to wrap up. 

Cheris