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Rolling Along

kids karateThere’s one thing I know about life. It goes on.

And so on it has gone at the Nichols household. I am very grateful for my darling little distractions who constantly need to be snuggled and fed and clothed … and who also entertain me so thoroughly and occasionally break my heart with their insight and sadness. I am busy and that is mostly nice.

The kids started karate lessons basically in the midst of all this mess. We went to try things out the week before Mom went into the hospital. Ben was the original target, but after seeing what was up, Tabby REALLY WANTED (“Please please, Mommy, let me take Karate too!”) to join him and we agreed to let her. They have private lessons two days a week (this will only be for a couple of months before they go to 1 day/week) and then Tabby can attend up to 3 group sessions per week. Ben is not yet ready for them, but they think he’ll be there in a few months.

I really like what it is doing for the kids. It is all about concentration and determination and there is a good bit of memorizing and precision as well, even when they’re little and of course the physical conditioning. Tabby is her focused self throughout her lessons and Ben is all energy and power – the concentration is a bit harder for him yet. I really really love watching them do their stuff.

Ben is doing only karate and it feels like enough for him, but Tabby is involved in a couple more activities. She is taking Spanish lessons after school two days a week. This is only the second week, so I don’t know a ton about them, but they do “normal kid activities” like duck-duck-goose in Spanish and she seems to be enjoying it.

The other activity that Tabby is doing is Let’s Play Music, a music curriculum specifically for little kids (pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before). It uses fun activities to teach music theory in a pretty sneaky way. They’re learning things like relative pitch, audiation and beat and rhythm divisions. I attend with Tabby every other week and she goes on her own the other weeks. It’s been really fun and I hope to start Ben next year.

At school, things are pretty normal for Ben (just how he likes them) but Tabby is in a whole new league as a first grader. We get lots and lots of paperwork for us to read about curriculum concepts and classroom rules, etc. and Tabby gets a packet of homework every week. We have generally about 4 assignments to complete over the course of the week and it’s a good idea in theory, but with all that’s been going on, we’ve been hard pressed to get it done on time, especially since we had the equivalent of an extra week of work from the day she missed. Oy.

I do think her teacher is a good one and I know she’s learning a lot, but with our extra crazy (on top of normal crazy) schedule lately, I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with his expectations. I’m really hoping as things are getting back to “new normal” that it will feel more manageable.

We had a great time camping this weekend. It was a great way to end our wonderful camping season and the fact that Dad and Kelly were able to join us made it that much better. I hope to soon actually download some photos from the camera and write about it!

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Getting Through It

Do you know the bear hunt song? I’m guessing if you currently have or have ever had little kids, or just a decent memory, it’s somewhere in your brain. It’s a fun little sort of game/song where you pretend to go on a “bear hunt” and you encounter all sorts of obstacles. For each one, you say “Can’t go over it. Can’t go around it. Can’t go under it. Better go (or swim or whatever you need to do to surmount it) through it.”

That’s where I’m at with Mom’s death. I can’t do anything but go through it. There’s no shortcut on this one. And in the last two weeks I’ve learned more about sadness and grief than I ever wanted to. The initial parts were so shock filled and all-consuming. Later, I was better able to keep it together, but I’d crack when I could … like at night in bed or in the shower. Now I’m more even keeled except when “things” come up – Mom’s last paycheck, a pair of sandals that she gave me that are almost worn out, or choosing a different emergency contact for Tabby’s Spanish class – that make me tear up. I’m guessing it will be like this for a long time and I’m guessing I’ll have some even bigger ups and downs.

The thing that’s helping me the most right now is routine, or as much of it as I can handle. I’ve been at work all week, successfully even, and doing stuff with the kids. They have lots of lessons and activities that keep us busy. TV doesn’t hold much interest for me, but housework is an OK distraction. I haven’t been to the gym or gone running in a while, mostly, I think, because being somewhat depressed is making me tired. I want to get back to it soon, but I don’t know when it will feel right. Being around people is nice and I enjoy seeing our friends and family. We’re going camping this weekend.

I don’t want to think about holidays or big “life events.” It’s too painful right now. I feel very lucky that I spent so much time with Mom and that she knew how much we all loved her, and I’m trying not to let regrets or whatifs cloud her nice memory, but they keep trying to crop up and that’s hard. My mom’s oldest sister bugged us about not being with her at the hospital the last night. It seems unlikely that would have changed anything and based on the information at hand it seemed totally unnecessary, but it does feel like something of a failing. I also hate that we’d been more busy this summer with work and camping. We’d still seen my mom and everyone a lot, but maybe not quite as much as “normal.” And then I kick myself about not recognizing signs that seems somewhat more clear in hind sight, but of course that’s hind sight.

I know that all I can do is go forward in the best way I know how, in a way that honors and preserves her memory. It’s easier some days than others though.

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Mom

DSC_5483_editIt’s been a hellish couple of weeks. About a week ago, we lost my mom very suddenly to leukemia. I am – we are – still a good measure in shock and grieving very much.

Less than two weeks ago, it was a pretty normal Tuesday. Matt left on a business trip. I dropped the kids off at school and headed to work. Mom had gone to the doctor’s office the day before – she’d been more tired than normal (just how much more, I really didn’t know). My day progressed pretty normally until around 3p when my dad called. He let me know that her doctor had gotten her blood test results back and didn’t like what she saw. Mom was being admitted to the hospital for a bone marrow biopsy.

I talked to Mom, but nothing seemed too urgent just yet. At this point I was still thinking things like “anemia” not “cancer” yet I felt panic. I told my uncle (we work together) and called my best friend. Convinced there wasn’t a ton I could do, I went on with my evening, taking the kids to karate and our “normal” evening.

I visited Mom in the hospital the next morning on my way to work. She was in the cancer ward and her oncologist was there when I arrived – unsettling. Mom was scheduled for her bone marrow biopsy later that morning, but her oncologist and the pathologist who had viewed her samples were pretty convinced that they knew what was going on: CML or chronic myelogenous leukemia. This condition, while very serious, is also generally treatable with daily drug therapy. Patients can live fairly normally indefinitely. It seemed like we had an answer and a pretty good one, though nothing was certain until we had the biopsy.

So life progressed for a couple more days. I kept things together at home and at work more or less. I went to see Mom before and after work. Meanwhile around us, the state was under water and everything was going crazy. Just driving around town was suddenly a huge challenge. Somehow this resulted in the biopsy results getting back to us more slowly than they might otherwise have. We thought we’d hear on Thursday and then it ended up being Friday.

I’d gone into work for just a few hours and came to the hospital to get the official word from the oncologist around 10a. The diagnosis was not, unfortunately, what we were hoping for. What mom had was acute myeloid leukemia. The scary kind. The chemo kind. We were all freaked, obviously, tears were shed, but our path was clear. Mom signed her chemo waiver without hesitation. “I have too much to live for,” she said.

The plan was to do chemo for 7 days and then let it take effect for 7 days. At the end of the 14 days, Mom would have another bone marrow biopsy and have a 50/50 chance to be cancer free. If not, we’d repeat with about a 20% chance after that. But it didn’t matter. We adopted “14 and done” as our motto.

We notified family and had lots of visitors. And with our plan in place, my dad and I left to get stuff settled in preparation for spending a couple of weeks in the hospital with Mom. Dad went to work to get things arranged and I went to Mom’s house to pick up some comfort items. I was shaken and cried through the entire time I was at her house.

I went to visit my grandma and give her comfort. After sending mom’s stuff with her sister, I went home to give Matt and the kids some love. My sister had gone by the hospital on her way home from work and came by my house after that. We hugged and talked some more about the plan.

The sleep that night was fuzzy and bad. I awoke for good around 7 and had just pulled myself out of bed around 8 when my dad called. Mom was in the ICU and we needed to come. “Quickly” was never said, but it was felt. We rushed to the hospital, picking my sister up on the way. Matt and the kids dropped us off where we raced to see Mom. Instantly, we knew things were bad. Mom had gotten up sometime in the middle of the night and arrested. I called Matt back and he dropped the kids off with our neighbors and came.

Over the next few hours, we assembled pretty much the whole family. Experts came and went and we learned the worst. Mom had been out for a while before she was found and she was brain dead. We sobbed in cycles. I held mom’s hand, touched her hair and talked to her. I tried to memorize the feel of her soft skin and the color of her beautiful hair. I wanted something to hold on to. I wasn’t alone and there was some comfort to that, but not much. Before we could even withdraw care, she passed away.

Even as I write these “facts,” they don’t seem real to me. Over a week has gone by. We’ve done all the ceremonial stuff. We’ve gathered pictures, held services, eulogized, sobbed, purchased flower arrangements, written obituaries, hugged, done airport pick-ups and drop-offs and sobbed some more. But I keep expecting to see her … sometime soon. Yet I miss her.

My mom was one of my best friends. I worked with her and saw her almost every day. We spent leisure time together almost every week. We talked about everything. She was like a second mom to my kids and also the greatest grandmother possible. I’m truly grateful that we had so much time together, but I wanted … will always want … more.

Tomorrow I return to work after being gone in body for a week, but mentally for almost double that. I dread seeing her office and the portrait of her that will now hang next to my grandfather’s in the front of the office. She deserves this honor, but I so dread the reality of it. The finality of it.

There is so much more to Mom than this crappy, unsatisfying, unfair, totally abrupt ending. I will share that at a different time. For now, I will try to get back to whatever the new normal is going to be and just keep going.

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Mini Chicken Pot Pies

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Right now, with life the way it is, I love any recipes that fit the following criteria: 1) healthy 2) kids love 3) quick and 4) freezable!! So when I saw a recipe for “Chicken Pot Pie Cupcakes” I had to try it. And fast forward 3 or 4 months, I actually did! I had to make some swaps and sometime later, maybe, when life isn’t quite as nuts, I’d love to swap the cream of soup for actual FOOD, but these are tasty and have veggies my kids are dying to eat, so not too shabby, even if it wouldn’t pass muster with Michael Pollan.

Mini Chicken Pot Pies

  • 2 cans of refrigerated biscuits – the ones I buy are 8 per package and somewhere around that mark should work
  • 3 cups cooked chicken breast, diced (see my note below about cooking chicken breasts for use in recipes)
  • 2.5 cups frozen mixed veggies
  • 2 cans cream of mushroom soup or this delighful DIY times 2
  • 1 cup 2% shredded cheddar
  • 1 tsp dried basil
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • onion powder
  • garlic powder
  • S&P

These are ridiculously easy to make. Heat the oven to 400.

Lightly oil (olive oil mister time!) the bottom of your muffin tins. Then take each biscuit from the can and split it in half so that you have two thinner hockey-pucks. Press each half biscuit into the sides and bottom of the muffin tins, making little pie crusts.

In another bowl, combine your chicken, soup (or alternative), veggies, cheddar, basil, thyme and onion powder and garlic powder to taste. Add salt if you need it (you probably don’t, thanks, Campbells!) and pepper also to taste. Spoon some of the mixture into each crust. I easily got 32 cupcakes out of my chicken mixture, but I suppose this could vary slightly. If you find you run out, you could add some more veggies.

Bake for 10-15 minutes and enjoy! If you have chicken that’s already cooked, you can have this in the oven (at least one tray) in 10 min or less. The leftovers are great for kiddo lunches, mommy and daddy lunches or freezing.

I got 32 of these out of the recipe. MyFitnessPal calculates them at around 125 calories apiece, a little heavy on the carbs, but otherwise quite healthy. Three is a very filling meal.

A word on cooking chicken: a lot of people encourage you to “poach” your chicken, basically cooking it in a shallow pan of water for 15 minutes. I find this to make chicken icky, oddly anemic looking and most importantly, flavorless. When I want cooked chicken for recipes (pizza, salads, pot pies), I dice it and then cook it with just a little olive oil and salt and pepper. I suppose it’s a smidge less healthy for you, but it is way more flavorful and very quick. Do an entire family pack at once and you can use it over the course of a week or freeze for easy meals later.

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FALLLL!

 hail

I think one of the best things about living in Denver is that rain always feels a little special. We just don’t get much of it. Lately it’s been 90s 90s 90s – for weeks and I know we were all sick of it. We had a little rain here and there, but it never stayed long or did much to the temps. But yesterday around 2p, a storm rolled into Denver and DUMPED. I drove home in 6″ of hail alongside the road! It wrecked havoc all over the city.

But of course by now, really even hours after, it’s melted. The rest of the evening and into this morning has been lovely and rainy with a nice chill in the air. It feels like fall! It was fortuitous that I had a great fall dinner planned for yesterday evening: chicken pot pie cupcakes. I didn’t make them as prescribed, opting to use half the biscuit dough and more vegetables – really I’m not sure we would have liked one with 2x the crust! – and they were wonderful. Thumbs up from the whole family. I will have to post soon.

Matt is out of town for a few days, so I’m on the merry-go-round. Kids start karate officially tonight. But for now, it’s quiet in my office and I have a nice cup of tea and a pumpkin apple spice muffin.

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Here’s the Thing of It

benyetiHere’s the thing of it… I’m out of the HABIT of blogging. So now even when I do have a few minutes, it’s not something I automatically think to do. I need to get BACK in the habit. Just like I need to get back in the habit of running more often (BUT WHY IS IT SO HOT???) and keeping my house neat and checking stuff off my to do list. But blogging for now.

local

Anyhoo, we had an awesome labor day weekend. I took Friday off (YAY!) and we went to SkiRex because Tabby needed new skis and I needed a new ski jacket. Both were purchased at great discount. Ben tried on, but did not purchase that awesome Yeti hat. More’s the pity.

benridesThat evening we got to try out Ben’s new hand-me-down bike and he CAN RIDE! He’s not super stable and he’s having trouble with pedaling, and he fell and got road rash in like 10 places, but he CAN RIDE! He’s very proud and very determined and very tough.

demobikesWe also took the opportunity to demo a couple of very nice road bikes. Crazy expensive nice road bikes. I don’t think I can justify spending that kind of cash on a bike for a while. But maybe one of their poor cousins will work out for me.

helmethairWe also rode our bikes 7.5 miles to the movie theatre with the kids in the trailer to see Planes. Movie was awesome. Trek home … NOT. That’s the uphill part and did I mention IT’S BEEN HOT?? Tabby got the greatest case of helmet hair ever. Seriously, this does not do it justice.

In other news:

  • Tabby is loving her music class and I have its over-the-top cutesy kiddy music stuck in my head on repeat 24/7 – after this kind of torture, she’d better become the next Mozart (minus the drinking and womanizing)
  • We are going camping this weekend! A big group deal. I’m not 100% keen on being away from home AGAIN, but it should be fun.
  • We signed the kids up for karate. They are Japanese for SUPER EXCITED.
  • Speaking of languages, Tabby is taking Spanish at school. This should be interesting as I took roughly 5 years of super useless German and my only Spanish comes from the (strictly unsuitable vocabulary of the) construction site and Dora the Explorer. Matt actually took Spanish but speaks less than I do (his facility is with logic not languages)
  • Both kids are having fun at school. Tabby has lots of homework and her teacher likes to send us REAMS of stuff to read. I usually skim it because I’m awesome like that.
  • I’m supposed to run a 15 K in a month. That’s gonna be interesting.

 

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So We Went to Vancouver

1Well it’s only been a month or so since we actually got back from our trip and finally I’m making the last installment of our travel log … all about Vancouver. The last day of the cruise was a sort of blur. We had to have all of our luggage out in the hall the evening before debarkation. The next morning we got up and went for our last breakfast on the ship. After that, it was the waiting game, waiting for our group … green Tinkerbells … to be called. It didn’t take TOO long and then we were off and back into the real world.

We couldn’t check into our hotel right away so Matt and I walked a few blocks and got the rental car and then we went to Granville Island, a nice little shopping district just outside mainland Vancouver. We had some eats and poked around the shops and then we went back to the hotel. Naps and pizza ordered in finished out our day. Everyone was exhausted.

2The next day we headed out to Stanley Park. It is a huge park on the edge of the island, bigger, even than Central Park. We had a nice walk through the park to the aquarium and spent some time there.

3They had an amazing jellyfish exhibit with tons of different jellies that we’d never seen before. They were eerily beautiful.

4After lunch and some time at the playground …

5we went to the sprayground and had some fun in the sun.

We spent the rest of the afternoon, driving around Vancouver and checking out this and that. We had dinner at restaurant that specializes in mac ‘n’ cheese. Pretty tasty.

6The next day, we got up and headed out on the Sky Train (Vancouver mass transit) and went to British Columbia Science World. This is an AWESOME science museum for the whole family. The whole first floor was filled with great optical illusions and brain teasers that we all played with. Off the first floor, there’s other neat things to “experience” – pneumatic ball mazes, large scale spirographs, all sorts of audio play, a target practice game, etc. etc. We didn’t even get to see all of it because there’s so much.

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We had lunch there and then afterward we took the train back a couple of stops to Chinatown. We checked out some of the interesting shops and bought some cheap tshirts. We finished out the day with dinner at a Chinese restaurant and packing … including taking the car back.

The next day was all about travel. We got up around  7 to head to the airport at 8. We had to check in, go through customs, find food to take on the plane and burn up some energy on the nice little playground that was right by our gate. Our plane left a little late and when we got to Dallas, the Nashville crowd had to run for their plane while we waited on the stroller and then ran it over to them. Once they were safely off, we grabbed some dinner, including a couple of GIANT margaritas at TGI Fridays.

We had a long layover, so we made good use of the free Wifi at the airport and let the kids run around in a little play area. Our plane was unfortunately delayed and so we didn’t get back into Denver until well after midnight. We had a few misteps … got back on the highway going the wrong direction and took forever to find gas, meaning we didn’t get home until after 2. Man were we all glad to see home sweet home.