Yesterday was the anniversary of Melanie waking me at midnight, the morning that Mason and I were to fly to St. Louis for some family fun, to inform me that her water had broken.  Several hours later, Cutler entered into the world almost seven weeks premature.  So, to celebrate we had a packed house this weekend with my parents, aunt Pat, and Nana all staying with us and boy was it a fun weekend. 

We went out to eat on Friday night, where our spoiled Mason insisted on ordering lobster and I went with the kids fried shrimp meal.  He was nice enough to share the lobster with me, but is nights like that where I regret sharing it with him when he was three as he has developed a big affinity for it…with ketchup.  This was the restaurant that Mason likes to dance with the band and of course he went straight out there to show off more of his moves and Cutler thoroughly enjoyed watching his big brother bust some moves and even busted a few of his own.

Saturday was an action packed day as three generations of Frickes worked hard around the house doing a multitude of honey do’s.  Actually I should say two generations of Frickes did the work while the third was hard at work telling us what to do…and surprisingly it wasn’t grandpa doing the orders.  Mason is proving to be quite the task manager and he looks to have a good future in the general contracting business.  Saturday night Melanie took her mom to the Mavs game and had a great time despite the horrible end to the Mavs 13 game win streak.  Unfortunately they called on the way home from the police station where I had to bail them out for getting into yet another drunken fight on the way out of the game with some quiet old ladies in from New York trying to enjoy the game.

Sunday was party day and boy did Cutler enjoy it.  His happy mood just continues to get bigger and bigger over time and although overwhelmed at times with the number of people around he proved to be quite the party animal.  And continued to follow after his mother by hitting the beer pretty hard.  Yes, we have yet another picture of Cutler proving that he is indeed my son.  He wasn’t very fond of his own cake and despite the effort to get him to play in it, chose to focus on the yogurt melts instead.

Today he continued to prove that he is recovering based on his mood.  Despite little sleep, he woke with a smile and the smile continued throughout the day…minus his visit from the physical therapist.  We don’t know what it is, be just does not like her whatsoever.  Unfortunately the momentum of an incredible weekend came to a crashing halt tonight as I heard Melanie yelling from me from downstairs.  While being put to bed, somehow his feeding tube came out and a full controled panic set in throughout the house…except for Mason who was watching cartoons and Kobi who was practicing 99 bottles of beer on the wall in her room.  I’m still not sure she knows it happened.  🙂  Anyway, thanks to the on call support of the surgeon and Melanie’s smooth hands, we were able to put it back in and reinflate the balloon that keeps it from coming out, thus avoiding a trip to the ER.  We were told this would happen and so it helped keep us a bit calm, but it was still an interesting way to get the heart rate elevated.  I am hoping that helped burn some of the calories consumed through out the weekend festivities. 

For now, all is well and the doctors continued to be impressed with his numbers.  All areas are within normal range and we have cut back yet again on the cyclesporin and if everything looks good this Thursday we will cut back to once a day on it.  Once we are able to completely eliminate the cyclesporin, we will be able to have the central line removed, which puts us one more step closer to a normal childhood and more importantly one more step closer to playing in the pool with me and Mason.  This Thursday they will be drawing blood to perform the test that tells us what percentage is coming from which marrow.  Please pray for a much better ratio than we saw in the first test.  The following Thursday, they will perform a spinal tap and bone marrow biopsy, which will hopefully be the last required.

A lot of people have asked when we will know if it is a successful transplant and the doctor told us this past Thursday that they will usually determine it a success after two years.  I remain confident in God’s healing power and the fact that Superbaby Cutler is continuing to be healed, but I still ask that everyone continue to pray that God will continue to keep the leukemia at bay.

Below are a ton of pictures from throughout the weekend.

The smile, up close and personal

He has taken an affinity to Mason's toys

And perfected the Dr Evil laugh when he gets away with stealing them

You tell anyone I took this one and you will find yourself swimming with the fishes

The one thing he likes better than yogurt melts...GUACAMOLE...for BREAKFAST

The best way to deal with all of these fools running around my house

Beer, it's a family tradition

Dancing on a table after beer, another tradition (no pole comments please)

Cutler and his drinking buddy (Kobi)

Team Fricke

"Seriously? No zoom? It's 2010, not 1910!" thought Cutler and Mason

Big Bro, with the invention of digital copies why are there seven people taking pictures?

Not reacting well to being sung to

Big bro handling the fire fighting duties

Yogurt melts were used to make it look like he was enjoying the cake