A Confession, and A Birthday to Remember

The last month has been a blur, as the holiday season always is for mothers, and especially when you are a mother to a child with a December birthday.  For the first couple of weeks of December, I was very much still in recovery mode from my horrible skin affliction, and in my weakened state, I did something that I am very much ashamed of.

...

I celebrated Alex's 6th birthday at Chuck E Cheese, in all its middle America, plastic, and Made in China glory.   

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I fully support your decision to unfollow me, delete me, unfriend me, or use any other tool of social media to denounce me as a result of this embarrassing deed.  Of course, all the kids loved every minute of it, from the electronic games, the winning tickets, and the redeeming tickets for...put simply, a bunch of crap.

One of the highlights of being a birthday kid was participating in the 'Ticket Blaster' experience, where you get one minute inside a special wind-tunnel booth to grab as many tickets as you can as they blow around you.  Some of them are mega-tickets, worth 50, 100, or 500 tickets.  Alex, being the wily kid he is, craftily bent down and shoveled a hearty handful of the mega tickets that were still on the ground as the measly single tickets floated around him.  He amassed well over 1000 tickets this way and was able to redeem them for the veritable Holy Grail of Chuck E Cheese prizes--a gumball machine (made of plastic, of course).

Aside from my snobbish aversion to the Chuck E Cheese experience, it just really isn't a good place for a birthday party.  The individual nature of the games means that the kids are all milling about and playing, but not really interacting with each other at all.  The formulaic method the Chuck E Cheese strategists have set up to get the most bang for their party buck is to line up eight or so long tables and hold multiple parties simultaneously (even down to all singing Happy Birthday to multiple birthday kids at the same time) makes for a very impersonal experience.  Again, all of this was lost on Alex, who seemed to have a ball wearing his inflatable crown decorated with tokens.  I know, I know--the point of a birthday party is for the kid to have a good time, so mission accomplished.  But mark my words, there will not be another Tunheim child celebrating his birthday party at Chuck E Cheese.  I can already foresee the time spent on a therapist's couch as a result, but that's just the way it's going to be.


taken from the wall at his school--he could be
Sam in this picture; I love it.  And I love him.

Christmas 2010 in Pictures

I'm a bit late on this one, but it's been an action-packed month, so I'm actually quite impressed with myself that I'm posting these pictures before budding green leaves begin their merry sprouting on trees around town.  We had the good fortune of a) not traveling for Christmas this year and b) having my brother and his family come out for the holiday (and my parents for a few days as well).  One might think that houseguests for 13 days (and a total of 5 children amongst us) would not necessarily be considered good fortune, but in all honesty, it was fantastic.  Here are some of the highlights; briefly narrated but I'll let the pictures speak mostly for themselves.  As per usual, I tend to heavily prefer black and white, and have only used color to show the amazing blue skies we get in Denver or to show the wonder of my niece's pink accoutrements that I am not normally accustomed to seeing.  Warning to mothers of only boys--prepare your eyes now before you scroll down to the section on Christmas Day!

We spent the first few days enjoying the unseasonably warm temperatures, eating/drinking at our awesome neighborhood hangout, Vine St. Pub.  Sam and the kids built a stick sculpture out front; 6-year old Lexie immersed herself in the activity for hours.

 



Tyler and Lexie looking very official in
 their winter gear

After staying for a few days, Matt, Bodia, and his two kids got a good dose of winter as they left the balmy temps in Denver and headed to visit friends in Pagosa Springs.  The kids had never seen snow before--a day earlier, Bodia excitedly pointed out the window at our house to show them frost on the ground.  Frost.  When you live in Florida, any hint of a change in season is thrilling.  In Pagosa Springs, they snowshoed and sledded before heading home a day early to avoid being stranded by the epic snowstorm hitting the mountains.



Family Snowshoeing Snuggle



Yes, it's a miracle--they DO make
snowshoes in size 16!



Matt and Bodia

They arrived snowy and tired from a long day's drive home, and we had the perfect antidote--another meal at Vine St. Pub! We had another day before Nana and Papa arrived, and the cousins got to spend more time together.  At first, Kenyon, the youngest cousin at 2 years old, was quite taken with bullying his cousin Ty, two years his senior.  With an older sister who loves pink and prefers names like 'Sparkle' and 'Rainbow', he wasn't quite used to the rough and tumble kind of atmosphere that comes with three boys in one household.  He quickly got a thicker skin, and I really was continually amazed at how well everyone got along. 







 And then Christmas was upon us; here are a number of pictures of the festivities.



The boys in their matching Star Wars
 jammies, and Lexie decked out in pink fluff





The cousins testing out their swords and shields
Nana and Papa brought back from Lisbon



Lexie in her pink jammies, pink slippers, holding up her Barbie, with her pink scooter at her feet :)



Both Sam's family and my family do a traditional English Christmas dinner, so we all worked together to make the prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, salad, and pies for dessert.



You'd think I would have dressed up
a little more...what's up with the tank top??



Taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather, we managed to go on a couple of great hikes.  Mt. Evans State Wildlife Area had a great frozen river to explore...

 

We also hiked around Red Rocks...

It was a fun-filled holiday season spent with people I love--what more could I ask for?  Well, I wish my brother lived here, so we wouldn't have to wait until holidays for our families to get together...could this be a foreshadowing of future events??  Only time will tell... :) 

Money Well Spent

I pride myself on my thriftiness--growing up, a common refrain heard on Christmas morning from my brother (partly in jest...maybe) as someone opened up a lovingly handmade present by yours truly was "Another cheap gift from Annie!"  Sometimes, though, the perfect presents are those that can't be bought at Target or Best Buy.  A couple of months ago, I had the good fortune to spend the day at Hunter S. Thompson's Owl Farm in Woody Creek, Colorado, drinking and exploding things with Hunter's favorite nickel-plated shotgun.  Did I mention this was a business trip?  It's a hard job, being an attorney for a brewery, but someone's gotta do it.  Anyway, Hunter happens to be one of my investigative reporter brother's idols, so while I walked around the property, I scooped up a small handful of dirt and brought it home with me.  Heck, since Hunter's ashes were blasted from a 153-ft. high cannon on his property, there may even be a little essence of Hunter mixed in there as well.  Placed in a cool glass jar with a label, it made a great gift for my brother to keep on his desk at work for inspiration.  Yes, another cheap gift from Annie, but a pretty cool one.

A week after Christmas, the last thing I was thinking about was buying a present for my children, but when I saw that a cool, independent store down the road from me was having a closing sale (and getting rid of everything at cost!), I had to stop in.  And there, gleaming at me a la the Red Ryder BB gun in the Higbee's department store display, was a lovely Mountain Boy Sledworks Classic Flyer wooden sled. 

Normally retailing for $159.99, this one could be mine for the low low price of $72!  I went home and casually mentioned to Sam that I had seen a pretty cool sled for really cheap.  If Sam read Look magazine, I would surely have slipped in an advertisement to dupe him into reading a Mountain Boy Sledworks sales pitch.  Lucky for me, he also had visions of sleds dancing in his head, and yesterday we became the proud owners of the Classic Flyer.

We walked the two blocks over to the snow-blanketed City Park Golf Course, where the mini-hills were just steep enough to do some nice test runs.  The air was crisp and cold, but the electric blue skies made us feel less chilly and being a few thousand feet closer to the sun really does make a big difference in feeling its warmth.  An elderly woman watched us from her front porch across the street, smiling and waving as she enjoyed the boys' glee.  Nearby, a couple cross-country skied with their dog running along beside them, and I suddenly felt so lucky to live in such a great area.



Jackson



Alex

Kenyon

Sam

Me

Folks, this ain't no plastic or foam sled that will last a couple of seasons before cracking, twisting, or falling apart. I fully expect my boys to take their children sledding on this very sled, while telling them stories of how much fun they had on it when they were little. Though it is arguably foolish to spend $72 on a new toy right after Christmas, it will be worth a lifetime of memories.

And seeing this face after sledding?  To me--priceless.

No Cancer!

My lymph node biopsy came back clean--no evidence of malignancy!!  The official diagnosis is reactive lymphoid hyperplasia, which means I need to keep an eye on the nodes in case they do grow further, but all is clear.  This Thanksgiving shared with my family will be extra-meaningful, and I feel humbled by everyone's well-wishes and support during these past couple of weeks of stress and worry.

Now if I could only get rid of this damn rash...

Me Too

My maternal grandmother was notorious in her preference for boys over girls.  My brother and I would often spend a couple of weeks up in southern Maine during the summers under my grandparents' care, where she quickly bestowed upon me the nickname 'Me Too'.  You see, I had a cool older brother, just 18 months older, so oftentimes what he wanted to eat, or where he wanted to go, I did too.  In the mornings, she'd make us brush our teeth and then drink a glass of orange juice before offering up cereal or oatmeal.  "Oatmeal, please", my brother would say.  "Me too," I'd pipe up. 

He's someone I've always looked up to (or in his words, he's spent his life knocking down brick walls with his head so I can walk right through).  I did manage to have children first (and that's quite a big brick wall to knock down), but through the vast majority of life I've been fortunate to have my brother experience somewhat of a trial run of life with me close behind as a witness.  It's given me the opportunity to know what I'm in for as I move through life, or as life comes at me.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was sweeping my hair up into one of my usual fabulous, fancy mom updos (read: ponytail), I noticed a lump right where my hair meets my neck.  Hmmm...and another one on the other side as well.  I was at the doctor's the next day-- my brother was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma a little over a year ago, so lumps aren't taken lightly, especially since studies do show a sibling correlation with the disease.  And these lumps weren't your usual, run-of-the-mill, tender but spherical swollen gland kind of lumps; they were painless, rubbery-hard, and an odd shape.

Fast forward through two weeks of the obligatory antibiotics to see if a viral infection happened to be getting those lymph nodes riled up--they didn't do anything for the nodes, but I am now nine days into my first allergic reaction to amoxicillin (whoopeeeee!).  It's a rare, cruel joke to be on the cusp of a high probability of a cancer diagnosis to also have one's body be overcome with dermatology textbook-publishworthy skin.  To use the word 'rash' does not accurately describe my misery--here's a picture of a small bit of my skin, if you can stomach it.

see my right leg?  It's one mass of redness.

Then multiply that by a million to cover my whole body (except my face, thankfully), and add the incredible itchiness.  Steroids, prescription-strength Benadryl--nothing is touching this rash as it continues to ravage my body.  A couple of nights ago, Sam made a late night trip to Walgreens and I shook with anticipation like a crack fiend as he came home and unloaded a bounty of Caladryl, cotton balls, oatmeal soap and some special aloe skin wash.  Cotton balls are fluffy and all, but I could have used a side trip to Home Depot to buy an applicator for applying deck stain, for the amount of area I'm covering here.  You know what, though?  Looking on the bright side, this unbearable misery has definitely taken my mind a bit off the potential cancer diagnosis looming over me.  And I don't want to come across as a Debbie Downer; throughout this whole thing I have felt wholly and eternally grateful that I am going through this instead of one of my boys. 

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have also included a fine needle aspiration biopsy (showed atypical cells but no conclusive diagnosis), blood tests, a CT scan, and the grand finale to this period of what-the-hell-is-going-on-with-me will be bright and early tomorrow when I have an open biopsy.  Removing a node or two should give them some answers, and I'm really looking forward to it.  Hook me up to the chemo machine; luckily, my big brother has knocked through this brick wall for me, so if I'm going to pull a Me Too with this cancer shit, at least I've seen him go through it first.


We've all been faring fairly well here, considering...last night I promised Jackson that I wouldn't look this way forever, and he told me that he was used to it and it didn't bother him at all.  Mental note--get that kid an extra Christmas present.  And for those that believe bad things happen in threes, I should get an all-clear biopsy.  This rash is a big number one, Kenyon was up through the night vomiting last night, and we woke up this morning to find that our beloved Gumball the Guinea Pig had died.

Are you there, Universe?  It's me, Annie.  This is enough for now; I think we've got all we can handle.