Stickers, stickers everywhere

Have I ever told you how much Joshy LUVS stickers?

Stickers, stickers everywhere,
Stickers, stickers in my hair!
On the windows,
On the door.
I even put them on the floor!

Oh yes, have you happened to check out the pictures and spot the pic of Joshua’s head plastered with a few ‘here and there’. How long do you leave them stuck to your front windows for all the neighbors to admire? And what about the dog's big fuzzy butt after he gets up from his slumber on the floor that once housed that same sticker like a leech ;-)

It’s a wonder that he has any stickers left at all. Well any unstuck stickers. And believe me, Josh got LOTS of stickers in the many cards he received for his birthday. If it weren’t for Mommy and Grandma F stashing some of them, they’d all be wallpapered to the nearest inanimate (or animate) object that Josh could find! That may be the ONE sole highlight of any of Josh’s trip to Pittsburgh week after week: the stickers he gets from the nurses. And who can say no to those flashy baby blues when he reaches in the basket and pulls out more than he’s allowed?

If you tell him two, he’ll flash you three fingers and bargain for more.
But you better watch close, as he counts them to FOUR!

So what brings me to today’s post? Could it be the dog with the sticker on his butt?

You thought I was joking?

I want to say: Maureen, thank you for signing Josh’s guestbook, I am SO glad to hear everything is relatively okay for you now and you are safe from harm’s way. We have been praying for you and thinking of you daily. You have a contagious outlook! Thank you for all your prayers, even when you needed the prayers yourself!

In other news: Jon and I celebrated yet another anniversary this week. Too bad we forgot it... Yesterday as I sat on the front porch with the boys chatting with Jon’s parents, I see Jon pull up and get out of the van with a bouquet of flowers. My first thoughts were: he got them because he knows I’ve been having a hard time since going back to work or maybe he’s trying to earn brownie points. He gets up on the porch and wishes me a Happy Anniversary.

D’oh! How could I forget? And how special that he remembered, albeit a few days late, but it was more than I could muster. I think that was a gift in itself!

Today: Kaitlynn played in a Make-A-Wish softball game. It was an exposé to kick off the MAW tournament held this weekend. We got ourselves a couple of awesome ‘Share the Wish’ tie-dye tee shirts, but alas they didn’t have any in Joshy’s size.

Anyway: Josh had an oral chemo yesterday. MTX. It’s the stuff he usually gets shot into his spine, but this time, in anticipation (and empathy) of the intense months ahead, he gets to swallow it. We have to crush it, like his other nightly meds, and disguise it with yummy cherry syrup. It’s not much of a diversion, though, as Josh still hates taking it, or any med for that matter. We have resorted to giving him his own large syringe filled with water to take as a chaser. Just a side note (and Grandpa can attest to this) Josh also likes to use it as a squirt gun, and he insists on having it filled over and over and over. So, just as the spinal MTX makes Josh nauseous, so do the pills. All 5 of them. Not an hour later, Josh comes running to us with his hand over his mouth. “I gonna poo’k”, he says. Jon runs for the bucket, I carry him to the kitchen. False alarm. But he walks around the house with the bucket in hand, just in case, making several unsuccessful attempts to purge that poison from his system. So now we get more medicine for his poor little body to help counteract that side effect.

Bed Time: This night Josh follows mommy upstairs opting not to fall asleep on the couch as he’s grown accustomed to doing since the day we’ve come home from the hospital.

It’s mommy’s turn to take her meds. Just a single pill. Pales in comparison to the ones I just crushed, but I take it with a swallow of Diet Coke like a trooper. I see Josh look from me, to the bottle of pills, to the can of soda. He thinks that looks like more fun. He grabs the medicine bottle and wrestles with the childproof lid. Maybe mom’s tastes better??? So I think, maybe Josh can try to swallow his meds. I’ve read tips from other moms who have their child practice with mini M&M’s. Good idea, but Josh is too content with just chewing the brightly concealed chocolate!

Stick the single sugar capsule on his tongue, gargle mouthfuls of juice, swallow, chew… Chew? How’d that bugger manage to escape his esophagus? ‘Pill’ after ‘pill’, he manages to swallow the drink, but not the candy. Half bottle of M&M’s later at 11(!) o’clock at night, we call it quits. Well at least we got some nourishment in him ;-)