Bleah

It's been a tough week. It had it's good points, don't get me wrong, but on the whole I am glad to see this week waning. This week we found out that my mom has cancer again. This time it is in her bowels. I suspected this might be the source of the pain she has been having but it didn't make the truth any easier to deal with. I pretty much fell apart the day she told me - I know, I know I am supposed to be strong for her - I got news for you . . . I am not strong and I am dreading what I know happens next - the rounds of dr. appointments, the days of radiation and chemo, the paranoia over germs and the pain of watching someone I love suffer even more. I dread having my kids watch this all happen again as well. The day I found about this Asher was playing outside and didn't hear me talking on the phone with my mom. I said nothing to him about it. Later as we were driving home from a trip to Costco he announced out the of the blue that he would miss Grandma when she died. I was floored and it was all I could do to see through my tears to drive home. Mom has already started radiation and there is some discussion about whether she will do chemo right away or not.

JJ had scouts that afternoon at his scout leaders house. When I went to pick him up I was informed by one of the other scouts that JJ had thrown another boy's glasses out into weedy area and everyone was looking for them. Of course I was appalled because especially now that JJ has glasses he knows what a big deal it is to mess with someone's glasses. So the full story was that JJ and this boy as well as a few others were jumping on the trampoline and "glasses boy" jumped on JJ and wouldn't get off no matter what JJ did or said. JJ hucked the glasses as a last ditch effort to get the boy to back off. My question to JJ was where the heck was his den mother during all this - he had no idea where she was. This is yet another event in a long string of events that have added up to my frustration with this ward. I want JJ to take part in scouts but having to deal with this crap on top of my own family issues just is more than I can deal with. My friend Missy and her son Carter came over later that night and brought me some yummy cake that Carter had made as part of a project he did for school on the state of Maryland. I am so grateful for loving friends who overlook my many failings and try so hard to buoy me up. There have been several who have expressed their love to me and willingness to help this week and I cannot describe how much that means to me.

On a happier note we watched JJ's last soccer game tonight despite the frigid and windy weather. They didn't win but they sure had fun playing. JJ's coach this year really stressed learning the game and having fun. We are so proud of what a good team player he is! Hannah still has one make up game left if we can ever get it scheduled on a day that isn't raining. She is a good little player when she tries but she is distracted easily. (like the dog from Up!)

Asher spends every minute that it isn't raining outside with our neighbor kids (whom we love!) toting the chickens around and playing his little heart out. He comes in at night filthy and covered in chicken crap (the coop still isn't done) but so happy. We are so glad we got some good neighbors next door finally.