Scans draw closer. We fly to NY on Monday, Dec. 1 and return on Friday, Dec. 5. Every scan, we are afraid that this is the one where they will tell us that it has "gone crazy" and spread everywhere. That fear has never diminished. Even though it has been three years. I realize that as of this Wednesday, Dec. 3, she will have been fighting cancer for more than half of her life. I look at all she has been through, and wonder, how can she still be strong enough to fight this? And yet, she is. It was the December scans last year that showed us her relapse. We found out the night of the Nutcracker dress rehearsal - but, "the show must go on!" and it did. She was a "Little Puppet" that comes out from under Mere Gigone/Mother Ginger's skirt. Now, a year older, in this year's production she will be a mouse. She loves it because they wear a hood with the costume and you can't tell that she doesn't have much hair. She has some of this Nioxin Leave-in conditioner for hair that is thinning. We told her that it is supposed to help hair come in faster and fuller. She puts it in her hair at least three times a day because she says that she wants to have "Lots and Lots of Hair". She uses so much that her hair is often just a little crunchy from it. She tells us that she is going to let her hair grow all the way to the floor and "Never, Ever, Ever" cut it. One of her brothers told her "that is just gross."

With some extra time off from school - the kids have been action-packed. So excited about it that they really don't know what to do with themselves. So, they fight. (Sigh.........) I would say that they fight like cats and dogs --- but, having little experience with dogs, I am more inclined to say that they fight like cats and more cats. Mostly, the older kids. We have assigned chores to keep them busy - but the quality of the work sometimes leaves much to be desired. While we have at times wondered why we ever had kids. Lately, we have found ourselves wondering why we didn't have different, better-behaved kids intead of these kids that we do have. Just kidding..... Justin! We wouldn't trade one of you for the world!

Getting ready to host the family Thanksgiving dinner was a lot of work. The kids and pets have really trashed the house after all our time in NY over the past three months. I tend to clean like a crazy woman because - to cook and host a big dinner, I like to start from a clean house. It makes me feel more in control and more competent. So, as I am cleaning - I wonder...... Why are there three tire pressure gages in my silverware drawer? (Honestly, not to point fingers, but I don't think any one of my children has ever measured a tire pressure in their life, and I think I can safely eliminate the pets. I, myself, have many interests, but tire pressures have never been one of them.) ..... However, no one has claimed responsibility. And why does anyone need three tire pressure gages? Why my silverware drawer? Are not some spaces sacred? No one is 'fessing up to the handful of AA Batteries in our Sharps container either. How many times do I tell them that only used needles and contaminate syringes go on the Sharps container?????? However, we did get it all straightened out and had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with my family. My dryer broke the day before and I didn't know how it would all come together with socks hanging from every ceiling fan in the house and sheets draped over the railings and doors and furniture..... but it worked out. Pat and Uncle Rick deep fried a turkey in the back yard --- either one of the two of them may be the source of PJ's pyromania gene, but, they managed to have a lovely fire and not burn the house down. And made a fine turkey. We have had several days off from school and I haven't had to conquor Middle Earth yet, but I can only escape it for so long. (Lord of the Rings Risk...) Now, Pat's mom is coming for Christmas and we are looking forward to that! The kids can't wait! I know she can't wait to conquor Middle Earth.

Kate has been so funny. She just cracks us up. Last week, when she had the fever and we were taking her temperature all the time, we had out the Sponge Bob thermometer. She told me, "Mommy, Sponge Bob makes a pretty good thermometer, doesn't he?" I told her, "Yes, he does." As I'm madly trying to dig through my huge stash of thermometers to figure out which one to use.....Keep in mind that at our house, if you find a thermometer with "K" scribbled on it in a black Sharpie.... it doesn't stand for "Kids" or "Kate" , but rather, for "Kitty" .... and it would be a very bad thing to put in your mouth. Kitties don't exactly cooperate to take oral or under-arm temps.

Kate has a selection of Kitties that she is helping take care of at the moment. We have a huge white adult cat right now - he is at least 15 pound. And has been climbing the Christmas tree. Yay. That's what we like to see. He is also deaf - we had never fostered a deaf cat before and wondered how it would be different from cats with hearing. (Most all white cats are deaf. > 70%) Hmmmm, it means that he doesn't come when you call him.... hmmmmm,....vastly different from our other cats. Kate named him "Bumble" after the Abominable Snow Monster in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. (Remember Yukon Cornelius, at the end, saying "Bumbles Bounce" after "He's a mighty humble Bumble" he tames him? The older kids have been calling him "Albus" or "Bumbledore" after the Harry Potter character of Albus Dumbledore. Bumble and Pye-Pye - our other evil cat have been making friends..... For a deaf cat, he makes a whole lot of noise. I read online that deaf cats tend to be either mute or absolutely howl because they have no volume control or feedback. He is a howler. I have never heard a cat make such a racket. And neither have the neighborhood dogs. If Bumble goes out on our screened-in porch, he howls to come in and gets the dogs all over the neighborhood barking. Last night, he disappeared and we heard noise coming from between the drywall sheets of the wall between the office and the garage. Pat called me back to the office.... "Guess who that is?" I asked, "Do you think we have mice?" and he said, "No, I think we have Bumbles"....I just cringe when he says stuff like that. I asked, "How would he get between the walls?" He said, "From the climbing on our shelves in the basement into the exposed beams."...... Shoot. "That can't be him. He's too big, right?" And then "Well, that just means he's more likely to get stuck." I am thinking, "Wow, I'd really hate to have to bust through the drywall to get the cat out..." So, we decided, "Okay, if he can get himself in, he can get himself out...or we'll deal with it in the morning." This morning, I heard his infernal howling.... from the garage. Somehow, he got out of the wall and into the garage. Probably need to look for a hole today. He's absolutely covered in dirt of some sort. Pat had noticed paw prints on the roof of the minivan yesterday and we couldn't figure out how the cat got into the garage -so we think he has done this several times..... Kate just cackles when he climbs the Christmas tree. He is just too funny. When Tessa forgets to put the cover down over the keys on the piano, he pounds on the piano keys all night. He really prefers the low notes - He must feel some vibration through his feet as he walks on the keyboard because he really spends a lot of time "composing". As much as Pat and I hate to admit it - we may not be able to part with him, he may end up being a "Failed Foster". When CARE - the Rescue group that we foster for has adoptions where the animal is returned later for whatever reason, they are called "Failed Adoptions"; when foster homes have these rescue animals who never leave, they are called "Failed Fosters"... Justin found the Christmas Stockings we made for the miniature hamsters he had last year and got all choked up. Last year, Kate had glued jewels to the stockings and it had their names, "Evil 1" and "Evil 2" written on them in fabric paint. He misses them terribly, but they were some majorly evil little dudes. Hubert the Hammie's stocking was there too. It has more fur on it than he does.

We also have four little kittens. One we have had for a week. "Little Orphan Annie" - we are watching her while her owner is on vacation. She is five or six weeks old now. We have had her since she was four weeks old - poor thing, she is a little orphan kitty whose siblings were eaten by barn owls. Is someone singing The Circle of Life? And then a few days ago,we added three more the same age. A little gray boy and two orange girls. These three new ones crack us up - they are little bulimic kitties. Yes, bulimic. They eat until they throw up and then want to eat again. They had me fooled for a while - "How can they be eating this much food?" Then the "Aha!" moment. Three little piles of barf. Got it! So I weighed them and plugged it into the "Kitty Feeding" Spreadsheet and they had each eaten enough for three kitties of their weight. However, this revelation could save me a fortune in kitty formula! They are starting to eat from a bowl... except for one of the little orange ones.... and I spied on her yesterday - when I am not in the room, she eats dry kitten-food kibbles from the bowl....but when she sees me, she whines and carries on and insists that she needs a bottle. So she is clearly a sandbagger. : ) They are very fluffy and cute though. Kate helped me bathe the four of them to get the barf out of the fur. She just loved it and wants to bathe them EVERY DAY.

We went in for counts on Tuesday afternoon at Riley. Good news! Found her port! It works well - like it a lot. She screamed bloody murder and it took me and four nurses to hold her down to access it. And the same four nurses to de-access it later after they determined that her counts were fine. Her platelets were 92 - I asked Ann, "Since she is six days out for transfusion, maybe they are mostly all hers." Bless her heart, she smiled at me indulgently and with great compassion and said, "Maybe we should check her one more time before she flys to New York". For those who haven't spent as much time in Oncology clinics as we have, that loosely translates as "Yes, and maybe pigs will fly out of Bumble-the-Cat's hindquarters." You have to keep a sense of humor or you will lose your mind through all this stuff. Kate was a mess after the whole thing. She found it very traumatic. But, she is fine now. Enjoying having her brothers here. She had PJ playing with the Fisher Price Nativity Set with her. ( I so highly recommend this toy! It is the best!) Except when PJ plays, the Shepherds and the sheep all fight with the Wise Men -who have the cows on their side. The Angel floats serenely above it all. I am not sure how the peacocks fit in with the Nativity or whose side they are on, but they may be visitors from the Noah's Ark set.

God Bless and please, keep her in your prayers next week - as well as several other little ones who are having big tests next week. We are so thankful that we have so many family and friends who follow Kate and pray for her - and the rest of us. All of the notes telling us you are praying for us, donating blood for us, keeping up with her help us so much on our bad days.

Trish and Pat