And now...back to our program

Wow, I've been gone for a while. I don't know how many people read this but to those who do, I apologize for the huge lag in posts.

Lots has been happening and I can't touch upon everything in one post so I'll update a bit each day this week.

First and foremost, my uncle Brian in Moncton (who is my Mom's twin brother) is recovering well from his near-death encounter with Vasculitis. It is amazing to see how far he's come in a couple of weeks time. His determination, will, strength and positive outlook are beyond belief and such an inspiration to the whole family. It was quite scary - I thought we would lose him for sure, but he's proved us all wrong and is fighting strong. I spoke to him on Sunday and it was so nice to hear his voice. Thank you all for your prayers - they were obviously heard.

That whole incident shook us up quite a bit and I didn't want to post much about it until we knew what was going on. It really knocked the boots of my Mom as well - only now is she starting to seem like herself again.

On the topic of health, I had the worst bronchitis of my life a couple of weeks ago which I finally treated with antibiotics. I haven't been coughing for only a few days now but it is such a relief to not wake up drowning in foul mucus every morning. I sounded like an 80-year old lady in the old smoking section of Tim Hortons (ahh, those glassed-in aquariums of death!).

Simon put the cherry on the illness cake though and came down with chicken pox two weeks ago. I had brought him to this new cafe that opened up on the corner called Enfants du quartier that is just phenomenal. It is a kid-friendly cafe that has an indoor play yard for kids, a great menu for tots and parents and a wonderful atmosphere. It is owned by a young couple with two children (2 and 4) and it so far seems to be doing really well. I plan on spending the winter there. Anyhow, we went there for the first time on a Saturday and we both had a great time. After Simon's nap that afternoon, I could tell he had a fever. A couple hours later, I put my hand up the back of his shirt to see if the Tempra had cooled him off yet - that's when I felt the BUMP on his back. I lifted his shirt and sure enough, little bumps filled with clear liquid were starting to appear on his torso and much to Richard's horror - on his penis. I'd read enough baby books to know that it was the pox. We had a tough couple of nights with high fevers (he spiked that night at 104.5!) but once those were over, the breakout wasn't that bad. We were lucky. He scratched at them when he saw them but I kept him in a light one-piece pj most of the time so he couldn't get at himself. The hardest part was balancing out who would stay home and when. My mom thankfully came to our rescue and stayed over for two nights and stayed home with him for two days. At least now it's over with and we don't have to ever deal with it again.

Here he is in full pox glory - you could see that his outbreak was really not too bad - the juicy one on his top lip made me nervous but it didn't leave a scar. For all the males reading this, his penis has no scars either. You could now sigh with relief.

We made a sign to commemorate the event.

We also made cookies one afternoon. As you could see, this time the cookie-making experience was much more pleasant than the one documented here. He didn't throw any tantrums when it came time to pop the cookies in the oven which was nice. Maybe the pox mellowed him out a bit.



Loads more news to report but I'll leave off for now and post again tomorrow.