Full Speed Ahead

05/15/06


The count down has begun.  In six days, seventeen hours we will leave for the airport and head out on big adventure.  We'll leave the drudgery behind.  We won't think about summer school which rears its ugly head a mere week later.  We'll chuck the chores and can the commitments.  We won't do wash for a week.  Yep.  That's the way it's going to be, if. . .

• if Davis can work out the details of exempting finals (apparently missed finals count as absences that affect his exemption from the finals that he will be exempt from but missing?)
• if Erin can shake the virus that hit last week (keeping her home from school on Monday and Tuesday and setting off a flaming ear infection by Thursday afternoon.  Can you say high dose antibiotics?)
• if the dogs pose no more unexpected health challenges (what kind of sick-humored vet ordains that even though you live on a lake, you must keep your two lab-mix dogs dry, ALL THE TIME.  Talk about a Herculean task.  I think I'd rather clean the Augean stalls.)
• if I can get enough clothes clean and dry, given that I no longer have a functioning dryer
• if I can get my summer school course material in a presentable form
  

Oh well, no telling what delinquency I'd have my nose in if I didn't have something to keep me busy.  You know what they say about idle hands (although, I think I might like to try the devil's workshop just once).

The last week has flown by.  Softball season wrapped up (at least for Erin who will miss rainout make-ups next week).  Davis knocked off three AP tests and feels like they all went very well.  I plowed through my stacks of finals and got grades turned in without too much sweat.  Walter continued to attend meetings at a heady clip.  Add in the care and maintenance of a toddler and someone just released from a hospital stay, and you just about have par for the course at our house.

Seriously, Erin enjoyed nursing Aunt Kat (if watching movies and working sudoku puzzles really constitute nursing) and thought having a little sister in the house was the grandest.  Kat got stronger under her capable care and got back home on Saturday in time to be pampered for Mother's Day.  It rained again this year for Mother's Day here, which canceled my soccer (bummer), but let us all move at a more leisurely pace.  The children's choir sang at worship on Sunday morning, but I didn't use good judgment in choosing my seat and could only catch glimpses of my precious daughter.  Davis put the icing on the cake by highlighting bunches of my favorite songs during Beyond Guitar.  Who needs an ipod when the local deejay plays just what you want?

Remember to think of us on May 30 when we return to Houston for scans (CT and bone scan).  I am not nearly as panicked as I was headed into scans three months ago, probably because Erin is continuing a known treatment rather than switching things around.  Nevertheless, I am going to cross my fingers and push my thumbs for clear or stable scans, and we ask you to do the same. 

I wish Erin hadn't taken sick last week, but no one promises that cancer children get to forego normal childhood illnesses.  She is feeling better now, still sniffly and not completely up to par, but on the road to recovery.  I know it won't hold her back from enjoying Disney to the fullest.