Welcome to February

February 3rd has come and gone again in our house with few noteworthy moments.  Most of the family doesn't seem to notice this particular date on the calendar, but it will probably be a long time before the day passes without my mental attention.  Maybe after next year, we will remember it more as Anna's survival day instead of Anna's diagnosis day.  We'll see.

The moments and memories of 2014 come to the surface relatively rarely nowadays, but the mental shrapnel of the traumatic times can still catch me off guard every once in awhile.

A particular song over the loudspeaker at a store.

A phrase or mannerism of Ethan's that is reminiscent of Anna at his age.

A dress similar to one Anna wore prior to cancer that I notice another child wearing.

A family with kids roughly the same ages of ours when Anna was diagnosed.  (How young they all must have been, especially Ethan!)

These are the little things that encourage certain memories to float to the surface of my mind when I least expect it.  Then they drift away as easily as they came.

In our home, we still have open communication about our experiences and memories.  I believe that we have dealt with, and continue to deal with, the events in our lives in a healthy manner.  Part of that means pausing and acknowledging when these memories arise.  So we will continue to talk and remember it seems appropriate, but will work hard not to dwell in the past.

Enough of that.

We made it through one of the few weeks with five school days in the past couple of months.  Everyone survived relatively well, with Matt biking to work two days and having two evening phone meetings and one early morning one.  By Thursday evening it was nice to finally be able to sit down and eat dinner together as a whole family.

In looking ahead to the next couple of weeks, I realized that if the kids wanted to make valentines for their classmates this year, we would have to do it before the weekend was over.  Everyone was amenable to making melted crayon hearts so we spent a good portion of Thursday evening, Friday evening, and parts of Saturday, peeling crayons and addressing valentines.  But now they are done!  And the kids enjoyed themselves!  Hip, hip, hooray!

The girls had some extra work this weekend, too, with Anna slotted to be special person in her classroom this week and Kate needing to make a box for collecting her valentines.  Kate is very proud of her box, designed and executed almost exclusively by Kate.

Knowing that snow was predicted for Saturday night, we made sure everyone got (most of) their work done on Saturday.  That way Matt was able to take Kate and Ethan sledding on Sunday afternoon before the SuperBowl without any issues.  Based on the pictures, videos, and stories, I think the three of them had a great time.

We're anticipating another round of snow tonight, but still cold, cold temperatures.  Hopefully, it warms up just a little bit so Ethan and I can get in a few rounds of sledding before the snow melts again!