Laissez Le Bon Temps Roulet!

Just going in chronological order here.  It's been a hell of a couple of weeks!  Let's see, we had a long, long drive down from SF, and as soon as we got back, Mom went into the hospital.  Then, I was too sick to actually visit her.  Now she's finally getting better, and intense family discussions have started up about what to do when she gets home, now that she can no longer take care of my grandmother.

Basically, Buddha's whole essay about suffering has been up in our grill lately.  We got suffering, old age, sickness, and we luckily avoided death.  But we still managed to have some fun.  Cause what else can you do, really?

Shower plans with pregnant Jessie!

Farmers market near our place.  Yep, Zack is standing, just holding that fence.

Here is some fun stuff that Zack is doing:

-Eating Cheerios, little Gerber puffs, avocado, and banana on his own.

-Just about crawling. (Actually, I may have missed his first crawl while doing this post!)

-More and more talking, which is nothing too new for this chatterbox. But he's started to work in more inflection and get super close to some words. Very interesting.

And yep, his hair is really that red.

Jeff snapped this pic of him and Z at the Mardi Gras

party of Mike and Jess (who married us).

Got my beads.  Got my noise maker.  Got my Darth Vader tee.

Got my Daddy.   Life is sooooo sweet!

This little cutie and Zack got some good play time in.

What?  Mommy's only had half a hurricane.

This is totally safe.

Mike and Jess life halfway up this hill.

You can park at the bottom, or you can park at the top.

This is me, after hiking to the top of the hill with Z.

25 pounds of baby!  I guess I'm getting back in shape.

There was a guy at the top of the hill, watching me struggle up, who was asking directions to drive around it.  He was scared to drive down.

Extremely suspicious of Great Grandma.

This has a difficult part of the last two weeks--talking to Grandma.  She seems to have no idea how sick Mom was.  And she also has no idea how old she is.  Jeff and my favorite quote from the week is from when Grandma told me there were some cookies in the fridge.  When I looked, there were just these chocolates.

Julie:  I think these are chocolates, not cookies.

Grandma:  Oh.  Well, they're in a cookie bag, so they become cookies.  You know, if you grow up in Europe, you're European.  Right?

Jeff:  A very good point.

Jeff is such a trooper, coming out to visit Mom while all this was going on.  And Zack was great, too.  He did two extra long days in daycare, and he was a complete sweetie pie when we dragged him down to Orange, only to sit in the hospital lobby while we took turns visiting.

But it looks like we have to do some research and figure out how Grandma can get the care she needs, and we're all pretty much thinking that means a nursing home.  So we're going to find a place, sit her down, and let her know how we feel.

And she:

will.

not.

go.

It's gonna be tough.

Sofa cushion drumming with Great Grandpa.

Chewin' on Manta Ray.

We had to suit up to visit Mom in the hospital.  I took this with

my computer, which I had to wipe with Clorox wipes

after the visit.

So to make a long story short, it looks like what mom had was parvovirus.  That's the current theory.  It's a common virus that doesn't really bother anyone too much, but in rare circumstances, it can wipe out bone marrow function and cause what Mom had--pancytopenia.  This means she wasn't producing blood cells.  Since she had no immunity, I could not visit her with my flu.  And then she was also a danger to visitors herself, because she was all infected with viruses and bacteria.

Zack in the hospital lobby.  He loves this toy.  Tekla 

got us one for our house, too.  Jeff put him right on top of this one.

Very focused.

This thing is just so great!

After our last visit to the hospital, and as

you can see, I'm extremely relieved that things are 

looking up.

I am so grateful to have Jeff right now, who has jumped in and embraced my family as his own.  And Trish called Mom, too, which meant the world to her.