Then and Now

On Thursday we went to the Omaha Children’s Hospital and Jack had a chest x-ray and ultrasound.  His scans show that there is no sign of cancer!  We’re so thankful he’s with us today…

Then

Jack was 15 months old.  He was laying in his hospital bed when we put Charlie beside him and he just smiled his sweet smile.  Jack has always loved his baby brother.

And now

It’s been over two and half years since Jack was diagnosed.  He still loves Charlie, although now they are about the same size and when they aren’t playing happily together they are usually throwing punches.  Jack is very happy and very healthy.

The two lovely pictures above were taken by Jill Neumann of Neu Images.  Thanks Jill!

This week we bought a large watermelon for the kids.  Jack doesn’t care for watermelon yet, but the other two kids dig right in, juice usually running down their little chins.

It’s going to be a watermelon kind of summer.

We had company last weekend.  Jesse Norman, Judd’s nephew from Montana, and Kane and Mickey.  Jesse went with Judd to the Berkshire Hathaway and the Merkel shareholder meetings.  We ordered in Chinese food again (our favorite) and made a fire pit that night.

Mickey taught Natalie to swaddle her baby monkey and Natalie’s been doing it ever since.

Charlie could not get enough of Kane!  He screamed when I had to pull him away from Kane to pick up Natalie at school.  Charlie wrestled with Kane, he played ping pong with Kane, and he was rescued from the top of a tall tree by Kane.

Charlie was eating toast with Nutella one morning when he yelled, “Carrots!! Carrots!!”  Of course when my child yells for vegetables I scramble to the fridge to get them.  And he ate them up.

Charlie playing in the mud yet again.  I came home from work and Kassidy was watching the boys.  I burst out laughing when I saw Charlie.  It’s very hard to take him seriously with a face like that.

Then he found Natalie’s smoothie and was very pleased and apparently very thirsty.

She lost another tooth!!  Both front teeth are missing and it’s quite adorable.

On Thursday, after we had spent a long morning at the hospital (and it’s always a little draining) I loaded the boys in the car to pick up Natalie from school.  After we picked her up we had to drive to the nearest post office.  Jack wasn’t sharing his smurf and he was screaming at Natalie so I took his smurf away from him.  He started screaming… a lot.  And the oil pressure sensor in my car has been acting up.  The sensor is broken so it will go off at random times, beep loudly.

There we were driving home from the post office at a safe speed when I notice I am driving side-by-side with a cop.  Jack let out a particularly loud scream and I remember thinking, ‘I hope the cop didn’t hear that. But what he can do?’  And about 30 seconds later that cop was behind me with his lights on.  I pulled over on a very busy street.  I rolled down the window and let out a big sigh.

“I show your registration has not been renewed.”

I said, “You mean the little sticker?”

And then, since I know very little about the rules and regulations of the DMV, I threw in, “I know I paid my taxes on the car this year.”

“No, that is a completely separate charge.  I’m referring to the vehicle registration with the DMV.”

Well, it was expired.  Probably because we moved last June and since the registration might have went to my old address, I am not going to remember to go to the DMV website and pay my registration.  All this time, as I’m trying to talk to the cop, Jack is screaming at me.  LOUDLY.  And about every 30 seconds Natalie would yell something like, “Jack just hit me ten times!”  or “Now Jack just hit me five more times!!”  Oh yes, and the oil pressure sensor was beeping loudly.

I got a ticket.  As he handed that nice white ticket into my window I said, “You know, I’m having one of those moments I’m going to laugh about later.”  He nodded and walked away.  No mercy.

I had a headache when I got home.

Even in those moments when Jack is completely ornery and stubborn and mad, how you can you not be overjoyed that he has another clean scan?  Without his good health, he might not have the energy to scream at me like he does.