For about 48-hours this week, this was to be the last picture of Lummi on the block. Her health declined quite a bit last weekend and we barged our way into the oncologist clinic for ideas. They gave her a Hail Mary of a chemo treatment and told us to rush her to the ER for oxygen support. That bad? ER doctor(s) assessment: She’s not going home.

So much crying. Frank and I visited Lummi in the morning, we took the kids to see her in the afternoon for (silently) their last time to see her. We only got 15-minute stints with her off oxygen as she couldn’t last longer on her own. Tired and out of breath, but she was still all there. It just didn’t seem real. ER doctor(s) assessment: She’s not going home. Oncologist recommendation: See if she can make it a full 48-hours, stabilized, for the chemo to work.

We figured if it was going to be Lummi’s last day, let’s eat cheese. American cheese to be specific, her favorite. (All of our favorites? It’s chemically designed to be delicious after all.)

This was really how the visit went:) Normalcy for Lummi in her last hours? Let’s pile on the chaos and distraction.

6am night shift ER doctor update: She’s not going home. That was it, no marked improvement in her breathing. In fact, she seemed worse. I reiterated that we still wanted the chest x-rays we’d asked for, even though it was expected to only show what we’d been consistently told. And then, we got a call at lunchtime from the daytime shift ER doctor: She’s breathing on her own! Better than she had been (on oxygen) several hours earlier, and it was time to talk about Lummi’s discharge to go home! And then our oncologist saw the x-rays and said there was an 80% improvement since the ones they took on Tuesday! We visited Lummi in the afternoon (HAPPILY!) and decided to keep her in the ER one more night to taper down off oxygen and practice breathing on her own while supervised.

With Lummi on the up and up, breathing under the watchful eyes of ER professionals (thank you, pet insurance), we went to the Seattle Children’s Theater to look up ourselves and see the preview night of Air Play! It was so much fun and even more fun to know that it was developed and premiered at Aunt Lisa’s theater in NYC! Airy connections from coast to coast.

Back on the block and breathing like a champ! Loafing around and sleeping like a champ too:) What ER visit? What crying? 

Turns out, there’s an inordinate number of things to do in Seattle. And we’re suckers for all of them. All of them! Meryl and her friends suited up for a morning on wheels today and then we hosted our first backyard party (in seemingly too many years) for lunch with their families. What a highlight, it’s great to party. (Red set of pad protection courtesy of Xanna nearly three years ago when we bought a balance bike for Meryl, finally in use!)

Jury is still out on which way she rides a skateboard:) But she’s doing it! And at the end of the class, each kid does a show-and-tell of what they learned…Meryl fell on her first try and the room started chanting, “one more shot, one more shot!” What a positive environment! She got right up and did her skate!

Grow up, don’t grow up, grow up, don’t grow up…a year and a half till skateboarding camp for this kid:) Luckily, he got his own playdate with a friend this morning so we can all slow down on the yearning here.

Temporarily! We are expanding our patio and adding more drainage to the yard (I’m allergic to standing water), so our lawn is a temporary sandbox. Proof it doesn’t take much to entertain kids…do we need a bigger sandbox? Cool it.

Now Holmes just needs to get a bit taller so the two of them are self-sufficient on the buoy swing:) When you want to fast forward and stop time at the same time.

Corn on the cob season has begun!

Olympics relived! Meryl and I went to see ‘Stars on Ice’ last night and saw all the jumps and all the sparkly costumes. Nathan Chen’s backflip remains Meryl’s favorite moment:)

This girl is a game playing fiend! She won ALL the games today and self proclaimed herself as the ‘Game Master.’ She keeps winning, despite our attempts to knock her hustle at No Stress Chess, Sorry!, and Rat-A-Tat-Cat (her favorite).