From another great weekend with Mason, was Cutler.

Mason is now playing in an indoor soccer league for ages three to five and his first two games showed incredible improvement from the outdoor season.  He was more involved in the game, hustled more, stopped falling down on purpose, etc.  So we started off our weekend on Saturday morning for Melanie to get to experience this for the first time.  Not sure what happened, but he completely reverted back to his old self, minus the falling part.  That has remained resolved thanks to the requirement of no falling in order to get a snack from the snack machines afterwards.  I think it might have to do with the girl on the other team that stood about 5’4″ and weighed close to 200 lbs, but Mason lost all desire to mix it up.  Regardless, he still had fun and that is what counts.  As I tell him after every game when he asks if he won…”Did you have fun?  That’s all you need to worry about.”  Mason’s quick response is…”Oh yeah, we won!”.

From there we had a great family day for the three of us tearing up the garage and taking down the Christmas decorations.  Mason was very helpful by grabbing the broom and helping push the dirt around in the garage before seeing his friends running around.  Next thing you know he was the responsibility of Miles, our neighbor.  Regardless, it was so nice to have Melanie there helping me with the chores and watching Mason playing across the street with the many different neighborhood kids.  I can not wait until Cutler is home and running around right behind Mason doing his best to keep up.

After not completing the garage reorg, Mason and I decided it was time to head to the Hobbs’ household for drinks.  Red wine for me and milk for Mason.  Mason had a blast playing with the Hobbs boys and not once was there a cry from upstairs as they all played together.  I must mention that there were no cries to be heard, because we were outside on the back patio watching football, but still no cries to be heard.

This morning started off a little rocky with a tired and cranky (milk hangover I think) Mason, but a quick trip to church resolved all.  After an inspirational message and Mason’s time in children’s church we were again ready to capture the world together.  It could also have to do with the constant threat that if he didn’t improve his attitude, he wouldn’t be going to Disney Rocking Live.  Of course we could never deny him that pleasure, so off we went to cap off a great weekend.  Here is a photo of my beautiful wife and son rocking it Disney style…

The only thing missing to make this a perfect weekend, is sleeping in his hospital crib, right next to me.  Cutler, your big brother is patiently waiting to push your limits when you get home.

Here is another attempt at the actual video of the kids singing, from the New Year’s Eve post of Cutler’s inspiring of song, rather than just the audio.  It’s odd that the video worked on my home computer, but not on this site.  So we will see if this format works.  If it does, blame the first snafu on Joe Hopkins.  If it doesn’t, blame the first and second snafus on Joe Hopkins.

I was just looking through some of the photos taken over the past few days and came across these two photos that are a perfect example of the danger of taking multiple pictures within milliseconds of each other.  🙂 

Cute

Notso

Before anyone starts calling CPS, I swear the pain meds are for his pain.

Good news first…white cell count was up to 400 this morning.

Bad news…none!  🙂

Cutler is still having the occasional pains that require pain meds, but in a sick way it is a good thing that he is experiencing the pain as the staff believes this is a sign of the new marrow starting to work and the white cells are further proof.  It isn’t that often that he needs it, but there are definitely times that it is required.

The doctors have stopped one of the antibiotics he has been on and as the cells continue to grow we will be stopping the celsep, which is one of two meds to help fight off GVHD (graft versus host disease).  Over the next several weeks is when the GVHD could start to hit.  As the wise old Dr. Goldman tells me, there is no GVHD without the G.  So now that the grafting appears to be working, we start moving into the GVHD territory.  Just another milestone that Cutler will work through in his continued battle over this nasty cancer.

Cutler is continuing to enjoy eating the different baby foods that we bring him, but still no interest in the bottle.  He even likes to drink fruit smoothies from the straw, but I have now been told that it isn’t a good idea so we will stick to baby food for now.  He also continues to play hard the majority of the day, but usually by the evening the picture below represents his favorite activity.