She should be called “mother-less” nature for daylights savings time, no true mother would mess with their kids internal clocks like that! Wow, we have been in a whirlwind of chaos…we have the earliest Christmas decorations up so that they will be in place at home upon our arrival home from the hospital…yes that means it’s a go, November 29th, Gavin will get his new and improved life (as long as he can kick this cold he has)!

Lauren got a really severe respiratory cold in the middle of the Bee Movie…we had her in urgent care and the ER throughout the week. She was so sick she told me that “even my hips won’t wiggle.” Now that’s one serious cold if it dampened her beat! Lulu is finally on the mend after a week of sleepless coughy nights! We have started her up on an allowance and daily chore wheel so she can start getting a concept that things cost money. She advised us that she was willing to do chores as long as she didn’t have to “work as hard as daddy” or “work for the man.”

Gavin’s been workin’ hard on his vocab. He is a butterball talking machine! It’s kind of fun, he’s in the stage where you are constantly trying to get them to repeat things back to you (no he cannot say supercalafragilistic, I asked him already). We have set up Christmas in the house already so it’s all put together for when we get back, and he thinks that every shiny round ornament is, of course, a ball. He does have quite the wicked arm (of course Jay is already thinking he is going to take the Cubbies to the series while I on the other hand, believe he would be better suited for the Brewers). He is loving the dancing animals that sing a song and move, he is starting to bop a little standing up, and will pretty much drop a beat on demand!

He is back to his vomiting, but in a couple of weeks, post transplant we are hoping that will go away as well. Needless to say we are in lock down to try to avoid any further germ exposure so close to transplant…immediate healthy adult family only.

On a serious note, there are so many many people that we are thankful for this year…his doctors (Wigton, Basir, Kym, Ehlert, Pan, Van Why, Bartosh, Neary, Anderson, Balcom, Kryger, Serogy, Sollinger, Conway, Erickson, Salvatierra, Concepcion, Comisky and Forester), his nurses (Karen, Linda, Jan, Dawn, Jackie, Emily, Mary Lou, Amy D, Amy M, Norma, Rick) our families, friends and strangers that have shown us that life is a beautiful thing and although this road has been lonely at times, we never walked it alone. Thank you all for your constant support—- it’s taken the world to raise this child!

Better get back to the preparations. We have so many, many, many things left to do! May you feel loved and equally blessed this Thanksgiving!

Jill