I'm Dante and I'm 4.

I have been trying all weekend to get in here and write something up, but here is what has been in the way:

Whew. What a weekend. We just picked up daddy at the airport after a week to ourselves. I was running out of things to do and not get too overheated - so we ended up doing a lot of painting in the kitchen.

I know, I know. We are total slackers, not keeping everyone up to date. I feel guilty all the time, but have to set some priorities. Like sleep, baths, or bills. :) Well, at least the last one, right?

Here's the lowdown on our past two months:
Soon after our last post, both kids spent 3 weeks on antibiotics from horrible ear/sinus/ respiratory infections. Carina's started off as almost nothing, and ended up with a late night call to the doctor with a fever of 104.9. Dante was just not hearing anything and not too pleasant to be around, more often than not. I was starting to think it was impossible that these were just ear infections. It seemed Dr. Patranella's office had a standing appointment for us weekly. At one point, we had to give both kids antibiotics, inhalers, drops, and nose sprays! It was crazy trying to leave the house in the morning. You can imagine the negotiations that took place! As Chris would say, "We are now pretty much qualified to a broker peace between Israel and Palestine..." It took a few days after the last dose of meds, but they both seem to be relatively clear now.... (Shhhh.... I don't want to jinx it.)

Soon after they improved, we had a Spring concert at Dante's school. I think they were testing the kids in Dante's class to see if they can make it in Pre-K - All in one day they had a Mother's Day breakfast snack (many moms eating in the lunchroom and many overexcited kids), an extended birthday celebration for classmate Alex (complete with happy meals for all, Alex's mom playing all day and a cupcake cake), and then they returned to school to sing 5 songs in front of a crowd. They were all so cute and silly, but by the time they got on stage, many of them were just looking around and smiling. Dante had to have Ms. Debbie sit with him at one point to keep him still, but he was singing most of the songs.

The following week was Dante's birthday and he was very excited about turning four. We went to his four year old check up and he was telling everyone, "I'm Dante and I'm 4!" He had on his Cookie Monster socks, Diego underwear and was reading a Dora book - I never thought about it until I saw it all together, how American is he? He was very happy. Until the shots that is. Sorry D! He told me later, "Now I'm going to be 5!"



We had a mini-celebration at home that night.

It's interesting to think about what kids can remember; I think it was maybe Christmas or Nonni's birthday and Dante and I had a late night, going-to-bed conversation about what to give Nonni as a present. He says, "Cookie Monster Balls!" I started giggling so hard that he kept going..."Big Bird Balls! Elmo Balls! Jen Palmer Balls!..." and everyone he could think of with "balls" after it. No mention was ever made of this again. In fact, he hasn't hardly seen Sesame Street since. Then, when I asked him what he would like for his birthday, he got real quiet and said "Big Bird Balls!" As soon as he said it he got this look in his eye and started smiling. Then he is on a kick. "Dante, what would you like on your cake this year?" "Big Bird!" (Carina - "Elmo! Cake!") At least this request was a little easier to understand than last year's cake.


We had the usual party with all the friends at the beach. It was SUPER windy this year, so most people had cleared out of there. Which left all the seagulls to us. I had bought little squirting animal toys for the kids and they were playing with them in the water. Suddenly, we realized some seagulls kept flying over them, then Chris yells out, "There's only one other thing that is that color - Cheetos!"

Dante got lots of books, a Mr. Potato Head set, a cool game he loves - Cariboo, a new "big boy" Lego set, and I even found him....yes, you guessed it - a Big Bird Ball!

This Spring has been a whirlwind of shuttling kids around and both of us working a lot. The time got away from us, so we finally scheduled Dante's CT scan (1.5 year mark) for this week. If we get another good reading, we will get his medi-port removed. I thought we would be going crazy not having more checkups, but we haven't been to the oncology clinic since January and I sure haven't missed it!

On a related note, a dear friend of mine from work, Steve, lost his battle with pancreatic cancer this weekend. I will sure miss all his stories and positive outlook. One of the last times we talked, he was telling me that he was going to have a serious talk with the oncology doctors about how they shouldn't tell people that there is no hope. He didn't want to believe it. He outlived all their predictions and kept on fighting all he could. He never complained, he just kept trying to figure out what else to do next. The newspaper today had a brief article about a celebrity with pancreatic cancer and how it is the deadliest of the top 5 cancers, with most people not living a year after diagnosis. Steve had been fighting for 2. Go Steve!