A Prayer Request

For over two years I've been following the caringbridge.org page of one of my sorority sister's sons, Ber. Ber is 6, and has been battling neuroblastoma, stage 4, since right before he turned 4 years old. He had been doing really well, but had a cancerous tumor removed yesterday (and a piece of his rib). This morning he took a bad turn, and it appears that he had a stroke - he's showing a lot of weakness on his left side. Bill and I ache for his parents. We can't imagine what they have been through these last two years, much less add even a fraction of what we've gone through with Imogene to all that they've been dealt. Ber will have an MRI very soon, and it's possible it was only a seizure, but the doctors are pretty sure it's a stroke, but hope Ber will recover as best he can. Please, please pray for the vanderMeers, keep them in your thoughts - whatever you can do to hold their family in your heart.

We had a great, great time tonight at the preschool Family PJ/Puppet Show. Unfortunately Bill didn't get there until the end, but did get to partake in some milk and cookies. I can't wait to post the pictures. Lily kept saying - "this is so funny, we're in our jammies at school at night." And then giggling uncontrollably.

For over two years we had a wonderful, dear, sweet young woman named Magda babysit on Wednesdays. Recently she stopped coming (it's not a bad thing, just decided we could use the money elsewhere!) - Lily hadn't said a word about her absence, and I was beginning to think that she'd just forgotten about her. Literally as I am thinking this in my head yesterday Lily said "hey, where's Magda today?" I told her that she wasn't coming anymore and Lily said "I know what Mom. I'll use my fairy wand and my fairy princess crown and I'll make them all magic-y and I'll do a specially fairy spell and I'LL be a babysitter. Won't that be great?" If only, Lily!

I've not always been one to give something up during Lent. But this year I've decided to try and do something that might add to our life, and not take away from it, but it involves stopping something. I'm going to stop losing my patience. At first I said it would be with the girls - of course mostly Lily here. Most of what Lily does that wears down my nerves and my patience is not really her fault. It's just the nature of her age and her curiosity level. And I guess Imogene can't really help it when she throws her food all over the floor in disgust. Either way with both, I need to just accept it and move on I think. And then I decided I'm just going to try and stop losing my patience with life in general. No more getting angry or frustrated at the guy in front of me who isn't turning right on red when there are clearly no pedestrians present; no more frustration with telemarketers who are just doing a job that pays- it's not their fault the credit card company is driving me nuts offering me some expensive protection policy; no more huffing and puffing in the grocery store check-out line, or as I drive around the therapy center parking lot for the 100th time looking for a space since the lot has shrunk by about 10 spots because of all the darn snow (Funny side note- about 10 minutes of driving around Lily says "What will we do if we miss therapy? I won't get my toy from Susan (the PT) for being a good helper and big sister. Her priorities are straight right?) I really and truly hope to take more deep breaths and try to just accept the moments of life as just that. Moments that add up to just a day, that will be followed by another day. And maybe each day will be a little bit better, because I'll stop being so impatient and frustrated and more accepting of what is good around me. Or maybe not.