Happy Birthday, Musical Daddy

Today Musical Daddy had a birthday (I'll leave it up to him to tell you which one). I had left his presents on his side of the bed last night since he got home late from rehearsal and hanging out with the guys afterwards. The Boy had gone to sleep at 9:00 and woke up at 12:00 just as I was about to get into bed, so I brought him in with me even though I could have easily put him back to bed after a quick feeding. Musical Daddy got home around 12:30 and we all slept for quite awhile. The Boy woke up at 4:30 to nurse...not bad, going for over 4 hours overnight.

By the way...I'm on the really old laptop. It is in such bad shape. Worse so because it fell down a few days ago...and the 4 key is messed up. Among other problems. There's very little response, so you don't know what you're going to get with it. As an experiment, I pressed the 4 key 10 times and got 5 4's out of the deal. But I deleted them because you don't want to see 4's (I had to type that over again).

ANYHOW...we woke up for the morning at about 7:30. Barely awake, but we somehow managed. Musical Daddy opened his presents--an organizer for the fridge with shopping list and white board (you'd think that that was the equivalent of Marge getting a bowling ball from Homer but if you know him and us, that's a pretty good gift) and the book Tigerheart which, in all fairness, he specifically requested.

The best present, however, was when he handed the wrapping paper to The Boy, and just to watch him explore the new texture, examining it carefully in his typical multisensory fashion...and then to watch him rip it and throw it around, just shouting with glee, was SO worth the effort of wrapping the gifts and a lovely way for Musical Daddy to start his birthday.

We went out to breakfast, to a place that we hadn't gone in awhile because since the management had changed and most of the staff that we knew wasn't there, it wasn't nearly as good as it had been. I decided that since it was the middle of the week it might be a good idea to try them again. Musical Daddy was not disappointed by his raisin French toast and eggs on the side and I did enjoy my broccoli, tomato, and cheddar omelette. The Boy enjoyed breakfast as well; he ate quite a bit of both plain egg and the broccoli and tomato egg, and some potatoes.

Another aside: Musical Daddy and I have been together for nearly 8 years. For quite a long time he led me to believe that I was indecisive and needed to have a stronger voice in picking out things for myself or for us...when in reality he's the one who is indecisive and I can't believe it took me as long as it did to figure this out. Really, neither one of us has strong opinions about things like exactly where we go out to eat or what color to paint the walls but it seems as though I'm usually the tiebreaker (I rather like our walls, by the way. They are a silver color, rather than a white or a beige, and they have a satin finish).

We relaxed at home for awhile and then I exercised. This makes the third time in a week that I've exercised and I have to say, I rather like the feeling. Of course, with the way that I ate today, I'm sure glad that I have been exercising.

I also washed diapers today. The past 2 diaper washings have been more like 5 days apart instead of the more typical (and more recommended) 3 or so. I think that since we've rediscovered the prefold, thanks to the wonders of the nice covers that make it easy (like the Bummis Super Whisper Wrap), we've been using them more often. I think that we've been changing The Boy more often, especially while he's in prefolds, but it hasn't affected the amount of wash cycles. We have been setting it for large instead of medium, however. Since it was sunny and hot, it was a good day to line-dry (I would have planned the washing for a line-drying day anyway).

I went to teach lessons after lunch and, surprisingly enough, The Boy went for that entire time while I was gone without any milk (I have a stash in the freezer; if you just clicked the link and you're a person who is looking to improve athletic performance, tough luck).

We walked around a bit before dinner; we had intended to walk down the street for Soul Food but alas, they were closed because they lacked air conditioning. So we went to check out another place and to be honest, I thought that it looked too foofy to bring The Boy there. Instead, we went for dinner.

It is rare that we, being both health-conscious and cheap, will go out for more than one meal in a day unless perhaps one of those meals is a nice light sandwich from Quick-Chek. However, since it was Musical Daddy's birthday, it was a treat.

The Boy was fussier than normal at dinner. I tested the meatball theory and while he did moderately enjoy it, he also had some chicken in a sauce and quite a bit of bread. Including garlic bread, which he really enjoyed. I'm glad that we don't usually have bread in the house because white bread has so little nutritional value and The Boy doesn't need to have it become a staple of his diet.

We also had forgotten a sippy cup but The Boy did have several successful drinks from a regular cup. And several successful attempts to shove his whole face into the cup.

Chemo tomorrow, week 5. I'm not looking forward to the fact that it seems like he just got back to normal after last week and now he has to have more chemo; who knows how long it will take this time? Will he still be "not himself" for the next treatment? I'm not sure if next week will, in fact, be worse, because the Adriamycin (Doxorubicin) was 2 weeks ago and that is probably the harshest of the three drugs. It is certainly the reddest. Since chemotherapy is cumulative, maybe he was only recently feeling the effects of that drug rather than this past week's Vincristine, which is the primary drug in his treatment schedule.

Interestingly enough, as we studied the treatment schedule, The Boy will not get medicine every week once week 9 is over. Sometimes he will only require a blood draw at the center. Tomorrow we should have some more definite answers as to when more things are happening.

I do hope that Musical Daddy had a good birthday. We're not the most exciting people but we have a good time, and we love each other.