Stateside Updates

Whew! We've been busy here in the States. First, we had to see all our friends while we were in NYC. We spent a day with Ed and Natalia, who are expecting a new arrival in September. Natalia opted out of the Yankee game, which was an impressive slaughter of Seattle. Then we spent a day crusing in Manhattan with Becca, Matt, Laura and Carissa. This is a picture of Matt and Becca with an interesting artwork on the roof of the Met. We also had lots of fun time with Dan's family -- games, food and playing with the nieces are always fun.

After the whirlwind NYC tour, we came to Ohio, where I've been helping my mom as best I can. The first week or two was a little brutal. She is still recovering from abdominal surgery, which makes starting chemo that much less pleasant to deal with. As a pregnant chick, I also have to be careful about coming in contact with bodily fluids that might contain her chemical cocktail. Mandy has mono, which meant that she had to stay as far from Mom as possible, so that left Dan to take care of a lot of the dirty work. He seems to think he didn't do much, but he really did make a difference to how smoothly things were running around here. Luckily, Mom's health really started to improve right when Dan had to head back to NYC -- she finally got her catheter out last week!

So now we're on the long and challenging road to recovery where Mom's feeling great, so it's tempting to overexert herself. We've been doing about one outing per day to a big box store where she can get a motorized wheelchair and we can do a little shopping. I think we're usually in a store for 30-60 minutes and that's about her tolerance level. Yesterday, she walked from the car to the store door, which is on the way to getting more exercise. She's put on a bit of weight since I've been here, which the doctor had encouraged her to do before the next chemo treatment. We're trying to figure out quick and easy healthy meals and snacks both for her good and to help Amanda get rid of her mono. It's an entertaining challenge.

The passenger is hanging in there through all the excitement. He is quite hungry as usual (mom says a sign that it's a boy) and seems to enjoy exercising his newly minted muscles. I get regular kicks throughout the day, especially when wearing a seatbelt, when I do too much bending and when I stretch out on the couch. A few nights ago, he tried his impression of the movie Alien, which was a little disturbing feeling the little guy's head poking straight out of my belly. Though it may not have been the head because he tried again this morning and did an accompanying kick to my belly button. Weird stuff. For now, he's got plenty of room to roam around in there and appears to be enjoying it all. I need to get more stretching in since much of my time is spent driving or at home. I have to get in shape for the likely vast amounts of walking we'll be doing in our July travels.

Anyway, things are going well here and I'm looking forward to a family baby shower on Saturday and my brother coming to visit on Sunday. It's nice spending time at home for a bit. Hope your summer is also action-packed and relaxing.