Happy Birthday, Stephen Thomas!

How your name saint, St. Thomas More, must be smiling at the way you are spending your thirteenth birthday! You spent the morning in the General Assembly Building in Richmond, supporting a bill that will allow homeschoolers to play high school sports. You supported Patrick as he testified. Delegate Ramadan personally escorted you to the after party meeting following the victory that got that bill out of committee! For the afternoon, you and your brothers will be introduced to full General Assembly. 

How perfect. How totally YOU.

You are a statesman. You see yourself as a modern day Thomas Jefferson in soccer cleats. And you love Virginia. Oh, how you love Virginia! (The Commonwealth and The University--you've already picked out your locker.)

It is 11:11 as I write. And I can't help but think of that day thirteen years ago, right about this time. Ever the Super Bowl baby (I just spent half an hour trying to search my own archives for Stephen's birth story. Surely I've written it here? Prize to the the first person who finds it), you are still and always Superman. Certainly, you are doing things in the superlative today.

I love you, buddy!

A Happy, Hopeful Update for Your Prayer Journal

Thank you for praying for Ian Stowe. After a very difficult week, the news is guardedly optimistic:

As many of you who care for Ian and have been following his story may know, it has been an arduous, weeklong journey for him, his family and his friends thus far. Ian entered Fairfax INOVA Hospital early on Sunday, January 22nd, and he has been through an insurmountable number of tests, procedures and operations. 

The news has varied for Ian, with expectations reaching highs and lows over the course of his stay at the hospital since he was admitted. His surgery went fairly well and the biopsy was completed last week, though the area of the tumor made it inoperable at the time. 

He has since come down with pneumonia, which he insists hardly bothers him, and was told some frightening news that he might have a GlioBlastoma (GBM). This is a very aggressive type of brain cancer and is the kind of news that would scare even the bravest of listeners; however, Ian has remained incredibly poised, confident and hopeful of better news and a positive outcome. 

Today, Ian had a Barium Swallowing Test in order to see if he would be able to eat on his own without having food or liquids enter his lungs. Unfortunately, the test revealed that Ian will most likely not be able to eat without assistance for short period of time, and may need to be fed through a tube that will lead directly to his stomach. 

 Finally, the much anticipated news from pathology came back, the news that would tell Ian exactly what form of tumor he had in his brain stem. After all of the frustration, the tests, the sleepless nights and anxiety of not knowing what the future may hold, Ian was given some good news.

 The type of tumor that Ian has is called a Germinoma. This kind of tumor is very sensitive to chemotherapy and radiation, meaning that the chances for long-term survival, or even cure, are excellent. Ian will most likely continue treatment at MCV in Richmond, VA where he will be close to family and friends, he plans to be moved there on Thursday.

 Though Ian is not completely out of the woods just yet, hope is at its highest point and he is confident that he will beat this tumor. Ian made it clear that he is very thankful for the love, care and support that he has received from everyone so far, making his stay in the hospital bearable. 

 I think we all know what kind of a guy Ian is and how much he means to us. The evidence of the significant impact that he has had on all of our lives so far has been portrayed in the reciprocated support for him during these rough times. Ian has always put his family and friends before himself and I think that one would agree when it is said that we owe him this kind of help during such an onerous period in his life.

So, thanks again to everyone for every ounce of support you have showed, and I ask you to please continue to fight alongside him as he wins this battle.

And a hopeful update on James Brogan from his sister:

James has the doctors & nurses AMAZED!! My mom & aunt have been working James all day & you are not going to believe what he did today. Mom brought in flash cards with pictures & the word of the picture on the back. Then she told James to squeeze her hand when she said the right word of the picture on the card. He did that immediately, so then she flipped it over to the word & asked him to do the same. Well James did 20 IN A ROW!! Then his right arm, which has had a harder time moving around lately, was all over the place today. So after the flash cards he put his hand in my mom's palm & acted like he was trying to write with his finger. My aunt ran down & got one of those huge pens for him & a notepad. They put the pen in his hand & James wrote "mom"!!! He also wrote my name, dad's, & then his name a bunch. When asked if he wanted to keep on writing he wrote "no" with a bunch of o's following after it (: Finally he reached over & grabbed his football squeezed it tight & threw it across his bed! Tears of happiness & relief run down my face typing this, but James is there! He remembers. I know he does! He is a miracle & he's not stopping until he is home! Everyone keep praying. It's working!!!

I still think children are good for a marriage.

Way back when I started blogging, I was very shy about writing about marriage. It's a tricky topic and, though I venture there a wee bit more these days, I'm still hesitant. But I got bold one day way back when. I think I was bothered by somehting I read. (Isn't anger a great motivator to write? On second thought, don't answer that.) I wrote about how openness to life made us better--better spouses, better friends, better Christians. That piece has been republished today at Suscipio. Won't you join me there?

We interrupt the regularly scheduled homeschool day

 to write testimonies for the boys to read tomorrow in front of the Full Education Committee in Richmond. We're all about House Bill 947, which would allow homeschoolers to play high school sports. I'm a little nervous about what they'll find when they get there. The Virginia PTA has sent out the following to all PTA presidents:

Coming soon to your team - students that don'tgo to your school!- HB 947 will allow non-public school students to play on public school teams
- Participation on athletic teams is a privilege that should be reserved for the public school students
- What's next? Drama, debate, electives?
Let them know that public school is your choice and team sports are a privilege you earned and expect them to protect.

I guess they don't know that homeschoolers are their neighbors and not dangerous aliens from another planet. I guess they don't understand that they will enhance the experience of the kids on the team. I guess they think that Nease High School would have been better off if Tim Tebow hadn't been allowed to play there. I do wonder what the folks in Ponte Vedra think. Oh wait, my family lives there. I know what they think. 

God willing, we're going to Richmond. I know for a fact that both the soccer and basketball coaches at my local school would think coaching my boys to be the privilege.

Directions to the capitol and parking here. Contact your legislator here.

Our Disney Trip: Bags and Buddies

When I shared our packing adventures, I mentioned that I packed a cinch sack for each of us. These are lightweight bags that can be worn backpack style. My boys collect them by the dozen from shoe manufacturers and soccer tournaments. We had plenty of them just hanging in the mud room. As a matter of fact, Nicky thought he could pack for the entire trip in them. He couldn't. (But he did try.) Every day at Disney, I loaded each bag with a water bottle, some trail mix, and granola bar or two and, on one fateful day, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If the children chose to bring iPods or Leappads with which to take pictures, they went in these bags. At the end of the day, I did bag management and turned them all inside out, gave them a good shake, and a quick rinse if necessary. The next day, I filled them again.

The snacks allowed us to avoid "hungry crankies," for the most part, and easily let us delay lunch until around 2:00, when most of the lunch crowds had already left the restaurants. Water bottles were easily refilled at water fountains. I can't overstate the importance of snacks and drinks. All I'll mention is that some of us had neither on the last day. Furthermore, at Animal Kingdom, there are no tops on drink cups, so if you want to walk and sip, you are out of luck without a water bottle. Ask me how I know.

About "buddies." One of my biggest fears was that we'd lose a little girl in the crowds. This fear was magnified when we realized that the crowds were much, much bigger than we had anticipated. We did not, however, employ a buddy system. I'm well aware of the much-touted use of buddies in big families. An older child is assigned a younger child and takes the responsibility of helping with everything from getting dressed to going potty to making sure he doesn't get lost. Mike and I made a conscious decision not to assign buddies. We wanted our big kids to be on vacation. We wanted them to relax and not to live in constant fear of crowds and at the constant mercy of the demands of little ones. As a family, we talked about how important it was to stay together and we made sure to impress upon all of them to watch out for each other, but Mike and I assumed all the responsibility for keeping an eagle eye out and doing frequent head counts. If a big kid hoisted a little one onto his shoulders, it was because he wanted to have her there, not because it was his assigned job.

Sarah spent nearly the whole time strapped to me. I think we were all glad to know where she was. Karoline flits around every day and all the time so we did have to keep a close eye and her and if she walked, she held a hand. I brought an umbrella stroller. Then, truth be told, when I learned that free stroller rental was one of Mike's perks, I rented a double stroller every day. And we used it constantly. It was big and sturdy and ever-so-helpful for tired little people who couldn't walk fast enough to keep up with their big sibs. When the crowds were super bad, we put Katie and Kari both in the double rented stroller and Mike pushed. Everyone was secured in big crowds, particularly when the big boys were with us, because  Patrick and Christian corralled those "little" boys in their own special ways. 

I have to say I loved holding them close. I loved being "just us" in the middle of crowds. If there is one magic thing I could have bottled and taken home, it would be the permission to be fully available and fully present to my children all day, every day. We were very blessed to stay in two bedroom villa with a living space and kitchen between the rooms. The kids had one huge room (with big boys sleeping in the living room) and Mike and I had a beautiful room with our own bathroom. We had time at night to be grownups and get away from the constant noise and activity of children. But the days? The days were all theirs. And we wouldn't have had it any other way.