Shopping sprees, puppy hunting and boneless buffalo wings

So, it's Saturday night and already our weekend has seemed..well..busy. Friday night, Albert had district wrestling tournaments which I was unprepared for. What I mean by unprepared is the fact that I wasn't aware that he would not be home until late into the evening. I called to tell him that I wanted to go to Target when he got home and of course he got home 20 minutes before Target closed...prompting a tearful discussion over the not so fun side of being a stay at home mom. Being alone with all the kids from sunrise to 9:30 at night would in fact be the downside..espicially on a Friday night...when I was looking forward to starting my weekend too. To make matters worse, Drew and Emanuel helped Brice get to the bathroom to potty and when they flushed the toilet, the contents of the toilet backed up into my bathtub!!! GROSS! I love my bathtub people, this was most upsetting. Albert wouldn't pick up his phone to tell me what to do about it. (sure hope he doesn't check his voicemail cause if he does, he'll find a few scathing messages!)Poor Brice thought he was in trouble and kept saying "Brice a good baby! Brice potty on toilet!" So, I kept having to reassure him that he was indeed a good boy andthat the mess wasn't his fault. Wow "the mess wasn't his fault" That will probably be the only time where those words are true!
Anyhoo, today was much better. We went to Target (my favorite place in the world next to the Mall and Babies R Us) and I got a new trench coat and a new wallet...plus a pair of jeans for Isaiah. We had a nice little lunch at Applebees (my favorite resteraunt) and then we went to the mall (I had lots of gift cards left over from the christmas before I got pregnant with Sydney) I got new candles, new room spray from Yankee Candle Co. and some new panties from Victoria Secrets! Yea, I feel like a new woman! Albert was like a kid in a candy store at the panty sale....he kept "making suggestions" Finally I told him "Why don't you give Sydney to me and you pick out the panties since you'll probably enjoy them more than me!" Ha ha!


I also got a pair of jeans from New York and Co. though I must say, it's so depressing to wear several sizes above what I'm used to. We also went to look at puppies as we've been thinking of adopting one. We found a sweet little liter of brown puppies but they seemed a little too aggressive. Plus, I think I really want a lab.


On the way home, we had a serious discussion about the whole "getting a match for Brandon" issue. It's become pretty clear that we can't afford in vitro at least not any time in the forseeable future. So I asked Albert "How long do we keep going before we say...we tried really hard, we gave it our best shot..we don't have a match and we have to depend on God to keep Brandon safe?" Of course I knew the answer but sometimes it gets scary to realize we may have a dozen or more kids at the end of all this. Albert looked at me and said...in all seriousness..."Until your uterus falls out...or we live in a cardboard box"


Yes, I know that's the answer too. But it gets so scary sometimes to look at a roomfull of children and know that you are responsibe for providing everything they need. Debi, I know you can relate. It scares me a lot. Albert reminded me that God has always provided for us so far and I know he's right. I also know, I wouldn't stop until we accomplish our goal....last week I came across a photo album on our computer that I hadn't uploaded to Shutterfly so I hadn't really seen it. In the middle of the slideshow, came up a picture of Maddie holding one of the twins when they were newborn. Maddie was a little girl who went to clinic with Brandon. She LOVED babies. Our twins were preterm and we were advised not to take them many places when they were small and not to let people hold them who weren't family. We tried to stay in, but of course Brandon had to go to clinic. When I got there one morning with my mom and the twins, Maddie asked if she could hold one. I didn't want to let any other kids hold them because they were so fragile and kids carry lots of germs. But then I thought of how sick Maddie was, how much she loved babies, how excited she was during my pregnancy and how she had looked forward to their birth along with us. It seemed a small thing to do to make her happy. I took that picture of her holding one of the babies, it was Alexandria actually. For the next couple of months, she would always ask to hold them as soon as she saw us come in the door to clinic. The twins loved her. No matter how much they were crying, they always calmed down when Maddie picked them up. I didn't regret the decision to let her hold them, even with Isaiah fresh out of the NICU. They were born at the end of September, and that next April, Maddie passed away. At the funeral home, her Dad told us he knew that she was watching over the babies that she had loved so much.


I guess the point of that rambling is that I know we have to do everything we can to give Brandon his best chances at survival. I know how I felt when I heard Maddie had passed, and I'm not going to go thru what her parents are going thru. But the reality of having baby after baby is rather freaking me out. In just a f ew months we start to wean Brandon from his medication. We are praying very hard for success. Failure means restarting him on the medication a third time. If it doesn't work, he'd have to go to transplant immediately, without the sibling match. That is what we dont want. I know we're doing the right thing, it just seems so crazy sometimes.


In more uplifting news, Lynn Worley had a new grandson recently!!!!! I don't know very much yet, but she said in the guestbook that she got to help in the delivery and that the little one was a week late!!!! How sweet. I am so happy for her. How wonderful that she was part of the delivery!
Emanuel had a basketball game this morning. He scored two baskets!!! Yea!!!!