Since you asked......

Please stop staring at Mac's head. It's freakishly large. I know.

I was harassed on Facebook today. That's right. Harassed. Taunted. Goaded. Apparently I'm not updating the blog enough to suit some of my readers. Or my sister. And do you know what I have to say about that?

You're absolutely right.

But my beefy, mobile, curious, and destructive 10 month old is taking it out of me. He is a one man wrecking crew. And by the time Jay gets home in the evenings, I'm ready to head upstairs to bed. It's actually very similar to how I felt when I was pregnant with him. Only now he's trying to play in the litter box instead of kicking my spine.

I'm not sure which I prefer?

I think we'll let the pictures do the talking and make this short and sweet. Is that OK with you?

Lois made it for 2 weeks without a single neutrophil, and just when we knew she was turning the corner, she got a fever. It had been a really rough weekend. She wasn't sleeping. She was doing a lot of crying. The doctors thought perhaps it was the steroids still left in her system from that delightful transfusion she had. But at Sunday night at 11pm, she busted out a fever of 101.3. I have to admit, we did a lot of hand wringing trying to figure out what we should do. Head to the ER on a Sunday night at almost midnight in the driving rain? Or wait until the morning and go to the clinic? We erred on the side of caution and I headed to the hospital with her. By the time we got there, the fever had dropped below the official "you need to come to the ER pronto" mark (100.5) but we were admitted anyway - and got stuck there for just shy of 48 hours even though her fever was never over 98.6 for the entire duration. I wanted to choke her.

I will spare you the gory details of those 2 days. They involve me being rude to a pediatric resident and refusing a transfusion of red blood cells. Don't worry. The oncology team was behind my decision. And the rudeness? I'm not a pleasant person at 4am. What can I say?

Lois has been here at home, happy, and healthy since then. Her protocol called for her third round of chemo to start last Friday, but her neutrophil count was still too low. We will go back tomorrow to check again. If it's 1,000 - we have a lumbar puncture to administer chemo in her spinal fluid and then start a 96 hour transfusion. If it's below 1000, we come back home for another week. I don't know what to hope for.

The hair on the back of her head randomly started falling out last week, and she's now the proud owner of a rather intimidating looking bald spot. She has enough hair on the top to do a spiffy little comb over, but I'm not sure what the future holds for her, follicly speaking. We took Mac to have his first hair cut this weekend and he went from a little boy to a big boy with a few snips of the scissors.


Handsome little devil, isn't he?

Check out that stance. And the size 6 double wide Stride Rites. He's a force to be reckoned with, I'm telling you.

They did a little work on Lois's hair too and she's now the proud owner of an "inverted bob." I don't really know what that means, but I know that I LOVE Lois's hair for the first time in her life. It's adorable. And of course, it's falling out.

The universe has quite the sense of humor.

What about Easter, you ask? Well, Easter didn't really happen here at Chez Hogan, and thankfully my sweet kids are too young to realize they didn't get a basket full of candy and toys. But there was this:


And this:


We did celebrate our April Fool's birthday with cake:

his favorite meal:

Look at that messy kitchen behind him! I TOLD you I was a messy cook!

and his two favorite kids:

And then this week we went to Flemming's Steak House to REALLY celebrate with expensive cuts of beef and a bucketful of Bearnaise sauce. Thanks for babysitting, Aunt Marpa.

And the rest of the time, we've been here. In the house. Watching Sesame Street. Doing laundry. And trying to keep Mac from eating cat poo, stabbing himself with scissors, using Daddy's potato chip bags as cymbals, smashing his fingers in the kitchen drawers, and chewing on the speaker wires. I'm a bit stir crazy. Aside from a trip to Target this week, we've stayed put hoping to keep Lois infection free.

Actually, Tuesday when both kids went down for a nap, Jay (who works from home on Tuesdays) let me run to JoAnn's' to buy some yarn. I picked up some yarn and needles I needed and headed to the register only to discover I had left my wallet at home.

And that about sums up my week.

Thanks for the harassment, Stacy. I needed it!

Before you ask, Lois fell in the playroom and scraped her nose across the shelves. That's the lovely red scab you'll see in the pictures. And no, Mac isn't wearing pants in the birthday photo with Jay. Frankly, by 7pm at night, I'm lucky I'm still wearing pants.