Weekend Packed

Hi Everyone,
No cancer news to report. Now that I type that, I guess I could tell you all about my new obsession which is the scab on my left nipple. Sorry, no pictures. People from work read this blog otherwise I would divulge all. I have no care what perfect (ly wonderful) strangers see, but my everyday people, that's probably not a good idea. My right nipple is doing just fine because they didn't excavate my right breast as much as my left because my left had the tumor which means the nipple came out of surgery far more worse off. There is this scab covering the entire surface and I want it off, really, really bad. I can't stop looking at it, which is pretty embarrassing when I realize I am taking a peek at fairly inopportune moments. I can tell it wants to come off really, really bad too, but it's being held on by this underlying layer of, let's see, how to explain this stuff... well, it's called fibrin (I asked the nurse), and it's gross. Besides the layer of gooey fibrin underneath, the outer perimeter is being held on by my stitches. It looks like a bad patch job on a pair of worn jeans.

On Saturday it was my dad's fifty-ninth birthday, so we headed over to his house for a day of swimming and hanging out with the babies. The pool at our house had been broken for over a week (well the pump that cleans it was broken) and my poor dad, who tends to err on the cheap side when it comes to home improvement types of things (there has been a hole in our living room ceiling for almost ten years because he tried to fix the upstairs shower plumbing himself and still hasn't finished the job and won't hire a professional to end the torture for him) had been suffering through the entire hot week without his after work dip and I was afraid the pump would be broken the entire summer. These last few days have been record breaking hot and thankfully right when I couldn't take it anymore, he called to say it was fixed. Here's little Sadie enjoying her first swimming pool dip.


Yes, I brought Frida too and she was fixated on a tennis ball floating right next to me. That's my dad in the background. He's thinking I should just hurry up already and dump the baby in the pool, but I was taking it slow and canoodling her in to it. She wasn't too excited at first, but after awhile totally enjoyed herself.

So, back to my scab. The water did not help it to slough off and instead created more goo and dried out the surface even more so it's even uglier (how many people have I turned off with this post so far I wonder). I'm dying to know what's underneath. Please please I hope my nipple returns to normal, or at least matches the right.
Okay, enough of scabs, stitches and fibrin and on to something else. Nothing better to erase that image than a bunch of babies!



On Sunday Hannah convinced me to attend Nina and Dan's birth class reunion at a couple's home in Bolinas. The class was run by Susan Bradford who was a doula partner with my mom. My mom also taught these same types of classes. She used to teach them from our living room when I was a teenager. There was nothing like coming home with my boyfriend to a room full off pregnant couples all snickering when we would mumble our hellos and sneak off upstairs. Lots of, 'be careful or you'll end up like us...Ha Ha'. Just the sound of all the couples practicing their moaning was just the kind of birth control every teenager needs.

Obviously I wanted to go to a class like my mom taught, but learning I had cancer at the beginning of my eight month sort of derailed all birth plans I had. Susan came to our house two days before I was induced for a private birth class and I am so thankful for that. Unfortunately, my birth was such a fiasco most of what she taught me was never utilized. Nina however had an awesome natural childbirth. She went to Susan's class and above are all the babies. Hannah had attended too because she is also a doula and wanted to hear what Susan had to teach. So left to right you have my baby Sadie just barely being held up by some cushions, Amara (not cousin Amara, another Amara--total coincidence), Sunya, Lorelei, Amara and Gianni (I think that's the right spelling. He was the only boy and so cute!). Lorelei is the daughter of Hannah's friend (and a friend of the family overall) Susanna who also lived with us on The Farm.
Here they are again, but Sadie has succumbed to gravity. I tell you this sitting up thing really sets the five month olds apart from the nine month olds.



It was a great day all together. The weather was perfect. After we ate food and watched the babies play...which we are doing here..



... we all packed up our gear and headed down to the beach. If anyone remembers my last post about going to the beach (which you can read here), you will recall it didn't end up so great. This time, it was a lot better. It was pretty funny because what I left out of my previous post was that we had run in to Michelle and Jonathan (the couple whose hosted the birth class reunion) on the beach that same day and Hannah told them I was freaking out about the sun and bringing Sadie on such a hot day and Michelle came over to me with great concern and offered me their umbrella. I was so embarrassed. So yesterday she also made sure that she brought her umbrella and that we had plenty of shade. I am a little bit of a freak about the sun. Sadie is just so fair. However, once again I forgot my camera at the house so I have no pictures. Oh well.

So, a great Saturday with family, a great Sunday with new friends and family and now today Hannah is coming over so I can buy some more plants and do a bit of gardening (the other obsession besides my scab is my garden) while she watches Sadie--though not sure how smart that is today when there is so much smoke in the air from all the wildfires here in northern California....that's all I need. To worry about lung cancer too.
Love,
Rosalie