Nervous wreck

Woke up at around 5am this morning. I have my MRI at 11:30am. Why is it that my mind is already thinking the worst? I watched my father die of Breast cancer. It was horrible. He was diagnosed at 45. I miss him so much. He would have loved seeing G and A and been such a great grandpa to them. My paternal grandmother died of agressive, premenopausal breast cancer when I was 5 or 6 years old. As did her sister. We have some crappy genes in this family.

I've gotten 2 beautiful children into adulthood. Dear Lord, I have two more to go.

Christmas pics

More testing

I now have an MRI scheduled for Monday morning. Hopefully we can get this behind us so that we can focus on other things (like packing). They told me I'd have to be in that little tube for 1 HOUR. Holy mackeral, can't they make them any bigger???

If God doesn't give you more than you can handle, he has seriously overestimated my coping ability.

Christmas exhaustion....

Work (retail) has been utterly exhausting - I don't even remember how many consecutive days I've worked without a day off right now. When I'm not at work, we're packing. We move on January 15th, and we are nowhere near ready. The stress of Woods job loss. A's birthday celebration yesterday was squeezed in between church and grocery shopping. I have a biopsy tomorrow am.

Is it 2008 yet?

Acting Debut...

G got the part of a shepherd in the school Christmas play. She chose to wear an Ethiopian shirt and natalla. We think she made a beautful Ethiopian Shepherd and she even got got a speaking line "Go to Bethleham and find the baby". She delivered it beautifully! Big sister M was very active in Community theater. We may just have another actress on our hands.

Princess At

A's official birthday is December 24th. If you are going to pick a random date, did it have to be Christmas eve???? However, one of the very first photos I ever saw of her, she was wearing pants with a candy cane design, so it does seem oddly appropriate. We believe she was actually 4 in August.

Tomorrow is the last day of preschool before the holidays. She will be Child of the Day, and we will bring the birthday snack. She hasn't seen it yet, but we're bringing a cake that says "Princess A" (in pink frosting, of course) with a tiara and sceptor. She will be sooo excited! Her preschool teacher already made her a special crown. I will even break down and let her wear a party dress to school tomorrow (she would wear a dress 365 days a year, but it's hard to play outside in the snow in snowpants with a fancy dress on).

A is a girly girl, who wears lip gloss, loves dresses and panty hose and everything pink. Of my three daughters, she is the only one who loves everything girly. I rarely even wear makeup and I'll take comfort over fashion everyday. So do G and my older daughter M. But A actually has lip gloss "emergencies". If she can't wear a dress, it ruins her day. She loves everything with a princess on it.

I can't wait for her to see her treat tomorrow!

Christmas around the world...

A's preschool class is busy working on Christmas activities. Wood and I were touched and surprised to see Christmas greetings in Amharic on the Christmas display board at her school, and brightly decorated umbrellas that the class had made while learning about Timkat. A was beaming with pride, saying "they use these in Ethiopia, that's where I'm from, momma!". How wonderful that her classroom teacher researched and added this to their Christmas activites!

I sat down with the preschool director today and gave her a heads up about what's going on with our family. I explained the situation that had unfolded recently with our family, the ugly racism and the following retaliation for reporting it, our decision to move, the whole 9 yards. "Explained" sounds too rational - what I really did was break into tears when I started into the story, and sobbed in her office. G has gone to that preschool since she was 3, A joined her there last January, and Wood helps them with non-profit development and fundraising. They love and adore both the girls and seem like part of our extended family. She was visibly upset over what had happened, and offered to help in whatever way the she and the staff could and made several concrete suggestions, such as organizing a letter writing protest. Talking to her really helped, I feel like I'm less shaky right now, however, I'll admit I'm looking at most people I come across these days with suspicion, wondering how they REALLY feel about our family.....