table for 7.

watch this vid.  real fast.


New Project 1 from ashley Bass on Vimeo.
surprised?

i was. lol i think we're all still kind of in shock.

when i gave birth to miller, a post-partum nurse in the hospital asked "so you think you'll be done? or go for 5?" and i laughed and said "oh who knows!!" and she retorted with "if you don't say no now, i bet you'll have more..."

for a long time i thought "oh cmon... we could do 5. right? wouldn't that be fun!" but a whole other part of me was okay with moving on to the next, non-newborn, part of our lives.

when reese was diagnosed, i thought for sure we were done. and i told almost everyone that when they asked. a lot of our nurses at reese's hospital would ask me if we were having any more children and i thought "how interesting that they'd ask me that -- wouldn't they THINK we were done?!"

then time passed.

i think a lot of people have a perception about my day to day that isn't exactly on par with the truth. my days are often full of things that we do, but not all of it pertains to reese. she has PT/OT on mon and wednesdays and labs on tues. thats it. then chemo is once a month for overnight - about 36 hrs total. is there potential for longer? oh yes. are there other potential stays? of course. like this month we went in bc she had a low grade fever. that resulted in us going home then coming back bc they thought there was bacteria. buuuuut there wasn't. so did we have to stay overnight in the hospital? yes.

does it seem easier, sometimes, because we have amazing support? oh sure. knowing that i have a place for my kids to stay for the night while we are at chemo keeps me calm. knowing that if an emergency happened, we have family and friends to help keeps me sane.

but day to day, things are as if i had non-walking twins, almost. the "hard" (and i realize they arent actually hard) parts of my day with reese/miller are getting them into a store if there are no carts outside, taking one in the house then the other, getting strollers set up to go into places, etc. day to day, i have a normal 2-3 year old who just can't walk and needs oral meds a few times a day. during this past school year, we were barely at home running to extra currics and events and games and things... but it wasn't reese that made it harder. reese makes it better :)

we can go out and do things - splash pad, park, store, etc. most of the time bc i know her ANC counts weekly. kids on chemo, remember, aren't neutropenic 100% of the time. most of the month, her counts are the same as my other children would be (and they can tell if they are trending upwards after a low draw based on levels of other things...)

all this to say that we are excited about #5.

now, do i worry all the time that life may flip on me? most certainly. i worry that when reese has her next MRI (july 17) that somehow my world will come crashing down. i pray it doesn't. i pray that the meds are doing their job, as they have been, and that the doctors are even more amazed with reese ;) but i can't be certain about that.

no one can be certain for what the future holds. so, our job is to be as happy as we can. love each other as fiercely as we can. and thats what we do - whether our day is frustrating and exhausting or filled with mundane errands. and we'll do that with 7 of us.

now to the reactions of the girls -- aidan came with my to my very first appt and then she immediately went to school, told her teachers within 5 mins, and THEN wrote her journal entry for the day about it :) then she went to dance and told the whole studio. she's excited, obviously. she wants another sister.

sawyer gets it, but she is totally ambivalent. except that for a few weeks she only wanted a "brover", but now she doesn't care. i think aidan is getting to her ;)

reese and miller obvs don't know what's going on. all i know is that reese is going to just freak out in love when the new baby comes. she loves babies. miller is her bestest friend in the world. except miller is getting a bit... erm, toddler, for reese. ;) now they fight and are funny to each other.

so nothing really changes for a while - i still go to chemo with reese on those tues, EJ works. there are surprisingly a few "regular" moms of chemo patients who are pregnant and i already asked if there's anything i should not be around, but all is cool. the rest we'll deal with when we have to cross those bridges. i breastfed miller throughout the worst months of my life so i see no reason why i wont be about to BF this baby during more "normal" times. we already have a list of things we can and cannot vax for while reese is doing chemo - so thats easy. and im pretty sure a pack and play will fit cozily in our bedroom with our bed as well as reese's bed ;) then we'll just re-org or something upstairs.

boy or girl, its a win/win, really. id LOVE 5 girls. i can't even explain... on the other hand, a boy would be so fun (i mean, i assume ;)) and something totally different. each has its perks - and as i wrote about, after we found out miller was a girl, we're given what we're supposed to have. every family is how they are supposed to be. 5 girls, 3 boys, one of each.... all different. and all perfect.

so that's that i guess. thanks to Lily Toes Photography for spending a napless late afternoon with me and my kids to get the video done.

i have last day of school (aidan) pics coming soon. summer has officially begun, folks!! dance starts up again next week, maybe some camps, add in some VBS, chemo, therapy, and a walker for reese soon - and we're SET!!

::waves::

reese's birthday and sawyer's graduation.

and everything in between.

i have been meaning to post this for a while, of course. but didnt have the time. tonight, however, its just me and aidan sitting on the couch (S and M are in bed) while EJ runs reese downtown bc she had a slight fever (99-100) and we're just wanting a bit of rocephin so we can be on our way. hopefully her counts are okay and we arent admitted.

so now i have a bit of time. where i can brag on my babies.

a few weeks ago, a dear friend came into town. erin (check her out here) and her adorable children came in town for like 10 days (with a mid-week break for her to visit others who love her). we had a wonderful time. and i was over the moon blessed to have her here for reese's birthday party, as well.

her entire party was spend cuddling, hanging out, laughing, and cuddling some more - with everyone whose day was made by that cuddle time.

but first, we woke up with some [big] sister love.




and this i took bc my mom promised a smooch from reese's prayer warriors ;) so many people that i wish could have come celebrate with us -- but this will have to do haha


my brother and reese!


amaaazing and delicious cake from Black Flour!


pinata time!!


i cannot believe she is 3. i thought about doing a whole "from 2 to 3" montage, but ill just show comparisons, instead. :) here is my sweetie on her 2nd birthday.

sneaky as ever haha


the week after, was a busy one. reese had in patient chemo - and gave me a load of her "cheese" faces lol

it was one of the longest admission days, ever. just waiting... but she does so well. just hangs out with me.

later in the week was sawyer's preschool graduation.  omg.  she's going to kindergarten next year ::faint:: but ohhhh my what a big girl she has gotten. 


comparison from the beginning of the year haha



off to her graduation!! when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said "a fairy. so i can help people and plants!!"


now a few random special ones. i did a post for light inspired 2 weeks ago about sleeping kids and giggled when the days after presented me with some funny ones ;)


and lastly, a fave from the... well, year. my sweet girls on my birthday this week. follow me on IG for daily hilarity - punkfictionv4

and please pray that we are out of the hospital asap!

sometimes i forget.

sometimes i forget. 

tonight, the 6 of us went out to dinner. we're setting at a mexican restaurant passing out tortillas and eating queso when EJ stops and asks me "hey, remember when we lived in the hospital for 6 weeks..."

well, not really. 

in my head, it seems almost impossible that she was there for that long originally. where were the other kids? how did we rotate? what about work? how did we shuffle that around?

i know the answers to those questions, in reality. but in my head, it wasn't 6 weeks. 

i don't look at reese and think BRAIN TUMOR all of the time. i rarely do, actually. sometimes i can't help but tear up and think what bullshit it all is and think about everything she's gone through - and still has to go through, but day to day, she's regular reese. and we're blessed with that being the case. 

sometimes i forget about anything before 10/31/2012. my computer was running really slow tonight so i was going through and moving photos over to my external hard drive. i came across pics that i didn't even remember. tiny reese with a mop of hair standing on a chair in my kitchen, at the island. 

weird. 

i barely remember her that way at all. not to say i don't have fun memories from the first 2.5 years of her life - of course i do. but the past 6 months have completely... overwhelmed? that part of my brain. i don't remember her walking, really - even though she was doing that since 13 months. i don't remember her going to school (which, i mean, she didnt really go that often/long). i don't remember a lot of specifics. 

but i can tell you most specifics of the past 6 months. some things are a blur, but there are details that i remember that normally would be a blip on the radar. 

a friend of mine blogged this week and it hit me hard:  (grayson's birthday is days within reese's. and they found his brain tumor on halloween night, last year, as well. thanks to the internet and blogging, i have found someone who "gets" me.) 

"I actually forget that in the whole of the United States only 2,900 mothers a year are ushered into a tiny room and told that their baby has a brain tumor.  I forget that out of 313 million people living in the United States Grayson is the .000009%.  At the end of the day, I often think, "It is what it is" and 90% of the time this new life seems very normal.  But there are moments when the enormity of this crashes down upon me and I feel like I can't 

The stats are what surprised me. Guess what, though? i don't want to be rare. i am sick of being a statistic. and i don't want to be a pro every day. 

But i am. Maybe i should be proud of that. But sometimes it just hurts. 

At the hospital last week, we waited all day. a very very long day. we ended up in the infusion room with one other family, waiting for our room on D6. I could tell that the other family was there for the first time - mainly because mom, dad, and brother were there. usually, not everyone comes to chemo clinic for most families - not everyone can take off that much work. eventually, we all go up to D6 together, the nurse tells me to slow down since "it's their first time". i walk fast in hospitals. But then i thought about how "pro" i felt. a pro i didnt want to be. i knew where we were going, how to get there, which elevators get you there, where their room is.... 

then we get to the elevators and an anesthesiologist gets off and says "hey!! how are you?! how's your girl doing!!?" so enthusiastically. he's my favorite. he was the one that let me in to the OR to help reese to sleep when she had her port moved. but do i really want to know so many doctors that we say hi in the halls?

i never thought that i would be able to tell people which floor does what, how to get to your car from xyz, and that the best food is here or here. i never wanted to be that person. i still don't. but i am. 

sometimes i forget about life before the tumor. its easier to forget when i see the advances that reese has made in speech, for instance... the before isn't as awesome as the after. then with her hand, that was a slow process since july. she was a quiet, but hilarious soul - and now she's just louder ;) 

on a good note, our oncologist is sort of ::eyepop:: about reese not needed her ddavp shot for DI. he said "i may not be that old, but i am old" and while he "hasn't seen everything" he has "seen a lot" and he has "never seen someone just be over DI" if that happens to be the case in the end. 

well, duh, thats bc reese is a miracle. and God wants her doctors to say "well, i mean, there was this badass named reese who somehow was cured of DI so who knows!" 

and they'll say the same thing about her tumor. at least that is my prayer. 

the onc kept saying "man, she looks so good, doesn't she look good?!" and "what a difference. wow." and for that, i am elated.

i have so many photos coming. reese's birthday, sawyer's preschool graduation, IG pics from in-patient last week... but right now this is all i have. 

thank you for every prayer. keep them coming - God listens.