Christmas At Home

2016.  Yep folks, it's here.  Another presidential election year with pretty shabby options for candidates (well, okay, Hillary is less than shabby, and Donald Trump, well, is there really one word to describe his awfulness?  Methinks not).  Enough.  I still want to move to the south of Brazil.  My gray hairs seem to keep multiplying.  This year I'll be closer to 40 than 30.  Not cool.  I laugh at all the resolution-makers, yet again (who wants to get up early to exercise and eat rabbit food when it's 15 degrees and dark outside?!- then there's the inversion we get in the winter here in Salt Lake).  People, wait until March, or at least the end of February!  Goals, resolutions, and the like are all noble and wonderful.  I have my fair share too, but let's maximize the opportunity for success here. Okay, enough random-ness.  Sorry for that.  Well, not really.

Derek had a week delay in treatment in December so that meant he was NOT in the hospital for Christmas!!!  For about a milli-second, or less, we were bummed his counts weren't good enough for one of this scheduled weekends of chemo because that meant Christmas at home for us all.  God really does watch out for us and attends to the details.  

So, Christmas morning, we all hung out in our PJs, ate sugarplums (in the form of the best pumpkin cheesecake known to man), ate finnanhaddie for breakfast (smoked haddock), played with toys, shoveled the driveway (thanks Dad Canova for bringing your snow-blower!), and didn't go anywhere.  It was dreamy!  We didn't put away our few new things until the next week sometime.  We acted like we were on vacation for days and it felt OH so good!

For the 1st time since Derek's diagnosis we went swimming as a family.  I had been teaching him to swim frequently up until Baby Zac arrived and we'd been having a lot of fun.  This time, he was pretty nervous about it.  He was healthy enough to go, but it was mandatory that he bathe directly afterwards.  So much had happened in his little life, it's understandable. But, as soon as we entered the pool, he let go and had the time of his life.  It was purely joyful.  He practiced his strokes, went down the slide multiple times, and acted like no major life-events had occurred since the last time he'd been there.

Then Derek's 4th and final weekend in the hospital for treatment was over New Year's.  Who really cares about this holiday?  Bueller?  Bueller? Everything went well.  Given the playroom was close on New Year's Day, we went a bit stir-crazy.  But we finished reading "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe," played Toy Story Yahtzee way too many times, I tried to get Derek to eat (hospital food lacks serious flavor), and we felt quite liberated when discharged.  We now have a 3 week break before the next phase of chemo begins.  It's like Christmas all over again!!!

A quick side note: the day I bought aforementioned smoked haddock, Benjamin insisted on carrying it through the store- frozen, wrapped in meat-department paper.  Ok, no problem.  As we were waiting to check out, he turned to me and asked, "Mom, when we get home can I feed the fish?"  Um...  I responded, "Well," pause, "It's dead."  "Mommy, why is it dead?" he inquired.   I told him it was so we could eat it.  He then asked why they'd killed the fish.  I informed him some people had gone fishing, and then smoked it so we could eat it.  His final conclusion was, "Fish are yucky!"  He eats salmon all the time, but whatever kid.  I just found it so innocently cute and funny that somewhere in his almost-4 year old brain, he thought we'd gone to the supermarket and were going home with a pet!  Then, he and Derek were insistent that the cashier scan said fish first.  Quite the little love affair.  

Life is good.  Really good.  I have the cutest little boys.  Period.  Every day I feel Tyler is my soul-mate more than before.  

Here are some words from a character (Aunt Rose) in a story told by President Uchdorf at the last General Womens Meeting that pretty much say exactly how I feel about all the stuff going on:

“There is enough that doesn’t go right in life, so anyone can work themselves into a puddle of pessimism and a mess of melancholy. But I know people who, even when things don’t work out, focus on the wonders and miracles of life. These folks are the happiest people I know.”

“But,” Eva said, “you can’t just flip a switch and go from sad to happy.”

“No, perhaps not,” Aunt Rose smiled gently, “but God didn’t design us to be sad. He created us to have joy!³ So if we trust Him, He will help us to notice the good, bright, hopeful things of life. And sure enough, the world will become brighter. No, it doesn’t happen instantly, but honestly, how many good things do? Seems to me that the best things, like homemade bread or orange marmalade, take patience and work.”