Holiday Time!?

Well it’s that time of year where we all seem to find ourselves busy with family, friends, and just plain relaxing. I’m not sure the relaxing part has fit in yet, but we’ve been busy. Actually we have relaxed, we had a lovely Christmas Day, beginning with church, and then spending the rest of the day at my parents. It’s great to have the kids home for a couple weeks, a chance to sleep in and sort of throw away the routine.

Last week seen Rob off Sarnia for the week working for his brother-in-law again, this time on the set-up crew (they not only deliver modular office buildings, but also have a crew to install complexes). This is not Rob’s preferred job, but he was happy to help out in any way possible in their circumstance. (While James was in the hospital last time, his Uncle Ike also arrived in hospital, having suffered a stroke). After being gone for a week, we were glad to have Rob back again and we put him straight to work!! :) Have I told you what a wonderful husband I have?? You will soon find out!! :) As much as Rob needs to put in the hours of work, he did not want to work the entire holidays as he also needs to do some extra studying of his languages AND he wanted to help me put my house back in order, something that seems to have gone on the back burner in the last year. And so today we began the task of "spring" cleaning; washing walls, ceilings, cupboards and carpets, as well as organizing, downsizing (once again, seems we’re always doing that) and more organizing. Somehow cleaning the house doesn’t seem to make it any bigger! :) Wishful thinking!! :)

James has been doing very well over the last week. We’re interested to find out if he’s caught up on his weight yet: we’ll have to wait until next week to find the answer to that. He continues to eat relatively well. We even seen one time when he ate as much, maybe even more then the girls did! The last few days we have seen his desire to eat dwindle a bit, as we had expected, but he is still eating. No matter what happens, his interest for ranch salad dressing and ketchup does not seem to diminish ... much to our disappointment. We cannot believe how quickly he has been able to put his weight back on and look healthy and well again. Although James is eating well, we are a bit concerned about that fact that his belly has become very distended and his diaper yeast rashes have flared up pretty bad the last few days. A distended belly has usually been a sign of trouble for James, but so far he seems to being doing quite well, except for the fact that he is a bit more clingy then normal.

James’ endoscopy has been rescheduled for March 7, 2007. ( This also means that at this time we can hope to have his PORT put in that day, unless Surgery is able to get use a sooner date, which we will find out in January.) They had told us they would try to push it up and he is on the cancellation list. Originally we did not want to wait that long because we thought that James’ lack of eating and his habit of only eating one item at a time (e.g. one piece of rice at a time, he refused to eat it by the spoonful) had something to do with inflammation in his esophagus. With his recent excellent eating habits we do not feel this is the case anymore, but it sure leaves us perplexed as to why he suddenly decided to eat. The easiest theory remains that he was hungry and was trying to catch up on what he had lost. The past few days are beginning to support this theory.
We have been enjoying staying home the last week, although it has left James a bit confused. Last week he continuously would bring me his coat and the travel case for his pump, indicating he thought we needed to go away. To his satisfaction, we’ve been gone plenty the last few days, and he didn’t ask to go away today, although having his daddy home is a nice treat and he found it quite entertaining to watch us today. Not to worry, January will bring more appointments again to keep us busy.

All that being said, the deal was to work hard during the day, study at night. For me that means getting caught up on the paperwork ... I still have a few more months to go before I can say I’m done. So I better hop to it!! :) I keep telling the girls: "work hard this week, relax next week", gotta keep at it so I don’t break my promise.