Yesterday Mike, Annabel and I made the trip from Los Angeles up to Northern California, where Mike grew up and his parents still live. I haven’t been up here for quite some time – not since before Maddie died. So it’s bittersweet to be here now and see all the places she used to play.

This weekend is the Bay Area Brain Tumor Walk, and we are participating in honor of my friend Jackie!, who was diagnosed with an Anaplastic Astrocytoma (brain tumor) almost two years ago. We went to Jackie!’s walk last year and we are proud to be walking with her again. I walk with her every day in her fight against cancer.

Back to the drive up – it was Annabel’s first big trip, and she handled it like a champ. Much better than I did – I pretty much whined the whole time. I haaaaaaaate long car rides. Especially when the restaurant we stop at to eat has a big menu but SOMEHOW doesn’t have HALF of the menu items available at the beginning of the dinner rush. Annoying!

Annie has been busy taking in her surroundings here at Mike’s parents’ house. Luckily, being on the road didn’t stop her from checking in with everyone.

if you can’t see the video above, click here.

I prefer the real Rigby.

We had Annie weighed last week, and she is already up to eight pounds. Now, this may be normal, but for us it is crazy. Maddie gained weight very slowly thanks to the steroids and the calories she burned breathing. We aren’t entirely sure of what to make of this chubby little thing! But dang she’s cute.

thank you Erica for the adorable outfit!

Annabel had a fun weekend with special people. My Aunt Terry and cousin Christine came to meet her for the first time. My mom, Aunt Lynn, and cousin Leah also came along, and we had Ladies Day, a fun tradition in my family. I also had some sips of yummy pink champagne in honor of Annie. It tasted like rainbows.

My awesome friend Jackie! came to town to meet Annabel as well. I hadn’t seen Jackie! since October and I’ve missed her a lot. I was really looking forward to introducing her to my baby.

They cuddled and snuggled a ton. I had to pry Annie out of Jackie!’s arms. I’m pretty sure she wanted to steal her back to San Francisco.

Yesterday I dressed Annie in a super-cool outfit

thank you Ally for the adorable hoodie!

and brought her with me to Hermosa Beach for lunch with some of my friends. We ate on the patio of a sweet little blue house a stone’s throw from the ocean. I really love Hermosa Beach, I lived there after college and know it is going to be a special place to take Annie to the beach in the future. The lunch was great, and everyone there was so excited to interact with Annie. They were just as wonderful with Maddie, and it brought up some bittersweet feelings.

Annie’s first brunch with the ladies

Maddie’s last brunch with the ladies

Despite all the good times of this weekend there is a dark spectre looming in the future. Today is March first, and next month is April. That Day is growing closer, and I already have a pit in my stomach and a heavy weight on my chest. I don’t know how I am going to wake up on the day my little girl was taken away from me and face the world. I am still taking it day by day (sometimes even minute by minute) and trying not to think that far ahead.

My friend Jackie! is in town. This past Tuesday marked one year since her brain cancer diagnosis. Not exactly an event to toast to. With my birthday looming on Saturday, we decided that the three of us should get away. So we decided to go to Catalina Island. I was there last August under much happier circumstances. And while my body is still unable to refine diamonds, we went big and traveled to the island in style:

It was crazy. None of us had ever been on a helicopter before. Every other time I’ve gone to Catalina, I took a shuttle boat over. That takes an hour. The helicopter took 14 minutes. We flew right over the ferry.

We checked into our hotel, then treated ourselves to a nice dinner at a restaurant that hung over the ocean. After dinner, we got dessert (fudge for me, waffle cones for Mike and Jackie! and we walked around the island. We eventually found ourselves at the same beach I was at last summer, except this time it was deserted.

We split and spent some time wandering around the empty beach, our thoughts and the ocean filling our minds. I thought back to last August. I remember laying on the warm sand under the warmer sun, calling home to talk to Mike and Maddie. I told them that we were going to come back here this summer, when Maddie was old enough to play on the beach and run in the surf. I really thought the next time I came to this island I’d have my daughter with me.

We would have built some amazing sandcastles.

This last weekend Mike, my parents, and I drove up to San Francisco. Saturday was a big day for my Jackie!.

For those of you that are new here, Jackie! is one of my best friends in the world. Last June 23, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor on her frontal lobe. She had brain surgery to remove most of it. The tests came back as an aggressive stage three. She’s undergone radiation and now has a week of chemo every month…somewhat indefinitely.

Yeah, Jackie! and I “joke” all the time about how she, Mike, and I won the “worst things that could ever happen to you” lottery.

Right after she was diagnosed, Jackie! named her tumor “Turk The Jerk.”

On Saturday, my family and I joined over 80 other Jackie! lovers to participate in the Bay Area Brain Tumor Walk.

Our team name? “Turk is Toast.” Jackie! and her dad made toast-shaped head gear for all to wear.

I wore the head-bobbers, Mike wore the big toast, and the little toast…it was for Maddie. You see, Maddie, Mike and I had been planning to attend the walk, and then Maddie and I were going to stay in the city a few extra days to hang with Jackie!.

Maddie was supposed to be there. She was supposed to grab the toast hat off her head and throw it to the ground, making me pick it up over and over again. She was supposed to be in her stroller, or in a baby bjorn, or passed from person to person. She was supposed to be taking a few of her own steps in the walk. She was supposed to take her second airplane flight. She was supposed to be exploring San Francisco with me right now.

Her toast hat is so little. I couldn’t wear it on my head, so I tied the purple ribbon Jackie! gave me around me neck, and I wore her hat like a necklace.

The walk went great. A ton of money was earned in Jackie!’s name. “Turk is Toast” won the team spirit award.

Maddie would have been the most spirited one out there. She’s supposed to be here.

I’m in a place where I have so much going on that I don’t even know where to begin. Last week, I was gone for five days to help celebrate Jackie!’s 30th birthday. She arranged for us to stay in a mansion on a vineyard in Napa Valley FOR FREE. I mean, look at this place:

Believe me, it didn’t suck. Well, there was one teeny tiny little thing that sucked…more specifically DOZENS of little sucky things. Mosquitoes. And if you remember, I’ve mentioned how badly I react to bug bites. And if you don’t remember – I REACT VERY VERY BADLY. I have bites all over my arms, hands, fingers, stomach, hip, back, and face. and they are just as swollen and disgusting as ever. I didn’t take pictures this time but I have a feeling some of the other ladies did, because they are evil and want to blackmail me. Anyway, believe me when I say they were gross and really painful and itchy.

So, back to Napa! We went to gorgeous wineries and sampled yummy wines and sparkling varieties and we even went in a cave. I sang the Batman song in the cave because I am twelve. But doood…it was coooool.

And yes, those are just thousands of bottles of sparkling wine just SITTING THERE. Swoon.

The wineries are breathtaking. The grounds are impeccable and the weather was perfect.

If it wasn’t for the bug bites I would have made Mike, Maddie, and Rigby move to Napa. That’s how awesome it was. But those bug bites assured me that I am a city girl, so I was pretty glad when we went to San Francisco for the most awesome 30th birthday party ever. Jackie! throws an amazing party. And look at how many people came. I am pretty certain there won’t be that many people at my 30th birthday party (note to Mike – it’s only six months and eight days away so I hope you’ve picked a location, caterer, and band).

My favorite part of the weekend was spending so much time with Jackie! She started her next round of chemo this week AND went back to work. She makes my lazy butt look bad! She’s fancy.

Even though I had tons of fun, I couldn’t wait to see Mike, Maddie, and Rigby. And while it was great to see them, things were not so great in Southern California….

And yeah, I’m writing this in two parts. SUE ME. I’m tired from all the to be continued stuff!!!

This weekend, the famous Jackie! came down to visit. I haven’t updated on her in a while…mostly because she was going through chemo and radiation, and there wasn’t anything to report during those six weeks. Jackie!’s last day of radiation was on the 22nd, which coincided with her final day of the first round of chemo. She had a week and a half to recover before an MRI would show the results of the radiation and chemo. A week and a half to party it up!

Jackie! came down to LA on Halloween to spend the weekend with us and all our LA-based friends. She came along to take Maddie trick or treating for the first time. At Maddie’s birthday party she was Pebbles Flintstone, but on Halloween it was very cold, so Maddie dressed as a sock monkey. Maddie was way more excited about Auntie Jackie! than getting candy that her mom and dad would eat.

I can’t blame her, since I felt the same way.

On Saturday, Jackie! and I planned to meet up with the rest of our friends at our University’s homecoming. However, I got a call from our friend Matt late Friday night telling us that our dear friend, his wife, was in labor with their first baby. We altered our plans and visited Leslie in the hospital before homecoming. When it was determined that she wouldn’t deliver until the afternoon, we went to homecoming so we could visit with our far-flung friends and cheer for our friend Danielle, a returning USC Song Leader who was performing at halftime. As soon as we got word that Leslie had delivered (exactly at kick off), we left the game to meet our newest “nephew.” He’s so beautiful.

Jackie! couldn’t keep her lips off of him.

I really couldn’t blame her.

The day after our new darling entered the world was Maddie’s birthday party. Jackie! and I and our other old roommate Bella have an inside joke involving Monchhichi dolls. I dared Jackie! to wear a monchhichi costume to Maddie’s party…and she did. Fur and all.

Seriously people! That’s how awesome Jackie! is.

My only regret is that Jackie! couldn’t stay longer and have more moments like this:

We all gave Jackie! tons of hugs and kisses before she flew back to Northern California. On the morning of Monday the 3rd, she had her post-treatment MRI to see how effective the radiation and chemo had been. I held my breath all day. I had high hopes but I didn’t want to be blindsided like we all were by her stage three diagnosis.

I finally heard from Jackie! about two hours after her meeting with her doctor. It was all good news. The tumor hadn’t grown, and while the results couldn’t say definitively, the oncologist thought that the tumor might have actually shrank in some areas. This was the best news we could have hoped for. This means that Jackie! moves on to “maintenance chemo.” She’ll take INTENSE chemo for five days a month, then be off for three weeks. And while it’s AMAZING the tumor hasn’t gotten worse, it doesn’t mean she’s cured. Far from it. Things are still not hunky dory (if you read her sister’s updates, you might not realize the magnitude as she tends to sugarcoat things). It’s a waiting game to see when her tumor will come back. However, Jackie! is determined to live her life ignoring her cancer as much as possible. She will still think about it every day (how can she NOT?), but she won’t allow it to run her life. That’s why she’s AMAZING.

Cancer is a part of Jackie!’s life for the rest of her life, but she isn’t going to let it BE her life. She still needs good wishes and prayers. Maddie and Mike and I support and love her with all our heart.

Last Tuesday I had to check in with Doctor Looove. We chatted about a variety of things (2% me, 98% Maddie), and then Dr. Loooove threw out there, “Oh hey – we got the flu vaccine in today!” and I was like, “That’s cool” and then she said, “You should get it!” I was all, “I don’t do well when I don’t have days to mentally prepare for a shot” and she said, “Oh, well as long as you don’t have asthma, you can get the flumist!” and I am all about not getting a shot, so I agreed. It’s basically a nasal spray, you snort it into each nostril. It instantly gave me a headache (which all nasal sprays do) but I was okay until the next night when I suddenly didn’t even know my name.

I felt fine all day. I worked a full day, and then I went to a safety presentation a few miles away from my house. I stood the whole time, and I was holding Maddie, so I didn’t think much of being tired and sore when I got home. Maddie was tired as well, so when I laid on the couch with Maddie on my chest, it wasn’t anything unusual. Except I fell asleep at 8:15pm…and turned into a zombie. Mike would talk to me, and I would mutter nonsense back at him. Then at around 11pm, I suddenly stood up, holding Maddie, and walked back into our bedroom, where Maddie and I laid down across the width of our bed. Mike obviously had no problem moving Maddie, but I was complete dead weight. And I was for the next three days. I called Dr. Looove and she said, “Oh yeah, some people have a bad reaction to the flu mist.” Awesome, thanks for the head’s up.

As everyone knows, fever and vomit sort of put a damper on things. I totally forgot that I had a guest post up on Merlot Mom’s website. So if you are looking for more of my writing, check it out. Luckily I felt a million times better by Saturday, just in time for the party my parents have at their house at this time every year. This party marked the debut of Flat Jackie! Flat Jackie! is similar to Flat Stanley, except she is prettier, old enough to drink, and wouldn’t dream of traveling by envelope (only first class for her). This is Flat Jackie! with Maddie:

All signs point to more adventures with Flat Jackie! very soon.

On Sunday Mike and I met up with my super-fun friend Meghan and her husband DJ. We ate and drank our way through Santa Barbara, and she was totally understanding when the sudden onset of stomach trouble caused me to basically run from them at the end of the night. Thanks, Megs! Meghan and I also got some official stuff taken care of, as we are now business partners! And yes we are business partners Mike and DJ stop laughing at us!!! Meghan and I have started a joint review blog. I know what you’re thinking (booooooring) but it won’t be. We’ll have reviews of products and services and anything else we think is fun and funny. Plus, we’ll be giving stuff away pretty much every week. So that should be all the reason you need. We GIVE and we GIVE!

On Monday, Mike and I left my parents’ house (where they took care of all four of us, allowing me to recuperate), but first we introduced Maddie to grass for the first time. I thought she’d roll right off the towel into the grass, but she was much more content to gaze at the clouds.

Of course, she couldn’t let an opportunity go by without mugging for her mom.

She’s such a ham.

Monday night I had a great dinner with my friends Dana, Lissa, Kim, and Kim’s new baby, Catie -yep, the one that was born the same day as Jackie!’s surgery. Catie is tiny and beautiful, and makes me realize that Maddie actually HAS grown since we brought her home. Catie & Maddie will be in the same grade at school, so Kim and I have already starting talking about the trouble they’ll get into – hopefully it will be minor compared to the scrapes Kim and I often found ourselves in.

My main objective this Labor Day weekend was to stay as busy as possible, and I think I did a good job. On Monday night, I was so worn out from everything that I slept much better than I thought I would. I woke up with a start a twice, but both times I walked into Maddie’s room and saw she was okay, all curled up into a tiny little ball. She’s lucky I’m too short to climb into her crib, or she would have had her mom snuggling with her for most of the night.

I’m running on about 4 1/2 hours of sleep and I blame Bob Costas. I’m of the mind to write a strongly worded letter to NBC taking them to task for keeping me up until 1:30 am every night this week. For all of you that don’t live in the Pacific Time Zone, let me fill you in. The other time zones get the live feed of the Olympics. The west coast gets it tape delayed. What kind of crap is this, NBC? You didn’t even air the gymnastics until after 11 pm!!! You know perfectly well that I can’t stop watching an event after it starts. It’s like leaving a baseball game in the sixth inning when the pitcher is throwing a perfect game. I just don’t do it. So, NBC, you bastards, when I get fired today for falling asleep on my desk, you can expect to hear from my lawyer.

PS if you are my boss, I did not write this at my desk at work.

Moving on. This post is going to be as interesting as a bag of rocks thanks to my sleepiness. Or maybe it will be awesome because I have no idea what I’m writing. My eyes are totally closed right now. I’m an excellent typist. Thanks, fourth grade computer lab!

Mike and I were interviewed by the awesome Daddy Dan. I linked to it in my last post, but for those of you that didn’t click on that random link here it is again. Go on. I demand you click on it. Wait, I’m sorry. I don’t want to be demanding. I love you. Click on it if you want. But you should want to, because Mike and I are cool and Daddy Dan has an adorable kid who is about to celebrate his second birthday.

So, Jackie! has a website and it’s run by her older sister Stephanie. Stephanie is Jackie!’s oldest and therefore most frightening sister. I’ve hesitated to link to her site until today. Why today? Well, Stephanie has challenged all of Jackie!’s admirers to leave Jackie! a comment on her guest book. Stephanie’s goal is to have a comment from all 50 states. I thought, “hey Heath (I call myself Heath), you should finally link to Jackie!’s site – you have readers all over the place.” So, okay friends (I call you my friends), if you are so inclined (because I still don’t want to be demanding), here is the link to Jackie!’s site. Please leave her a comment telling her I am pretty, and be sure to refer to her as Jackie! so she knows you came over via me. And, be sure to leave the state or country you’re in so she knows people are pulling for her from all over the place. Make me proud, friends.

Last thing! A bunch of my coworkers got spammed by me yesterday. I love to spam my coworkers because they are all super-awesome workers, and I like to distract people to the point of annoyance. I’m a gem. Anyway, I wrote it with the intention of also posting it on my blog. So here it is. I’m tired, deal with it.

Okay People. So listen. I have this baby, right? And I think she’s cute and stuff. I’m her mom, that’s my job. Anyway, my aunt & her friend convinced me to enter Maddie into a beautiful baby contest. But I don’t like to think of it that way. I prefer to think of it as a SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM. So, won’t you go help my baby go to college and realize the American Dream of being educated without the terrible terrible burden of student loans and crippling debt that will put her in the hole before she even begins her life? I mean, some people have debt so bad that they have to live under overpasses and beg for enough money just to buy a crappy cup of noodles, and they have to open up like five credit cards and they max out all of them and they are constantly running from creditors and THE MAN and their lives end up in the crapper just because they didn’t win a baby scholarship program and DO YOU WANT THIS TO HAPPEN TO MY DAUGHTER?!

Of course not. So here’s what you do.

First, you go to this website.

Then, you click on View M. A pop-up window will open. The first baby is some chick named Mackenzie. She’s just alright. She clearly has no sense of style, no joie de vivre. You are over her and you haven’t even seen her. So, you click on the right arrow to see Contestant 2, and then your eyes will be met with a VISION. The vision of my baby smiling at you, practically begging you to keep her off the mean streets of LA. You will look at her picture and agree that she deserves more than cup o noodles for dinner.

NEXT! You are going to minimize that pop-up window, so you are looking at the first screen again. Click on the “VOTE” button below the View M gallery. Then click the circle next to Contestant 2 (Maddie). Scroll down, enter your email address, and then click “Cast Your Vote.” You will get an email confirming that you’re a real person, click on the link in the email, and then your vote will count.

Yeah, I know it’s a lot of steps. But seriously, think of the baby, people. A vote for Maddie is a vote for keeping tiny babies off the street. FOR REALS.

And, if you have any friends who want to keep babies off the streets, feel free to pass this on.

Don’t you wish you worked with me?

This morning on my way to work I passed a green mini van, and a ton of memories came rushing back at me. Not of my childhood (although my parents totally had a green minivan), but of college. Why? Because Jackie!’s car in college was a green minivan with a sliding door. Yeah, it was super sexy. A lot of people would be mortified to have a mini van in college. Not Jackie! She embraced it.

That car was key to our existence. We took it EVERYWHERE. If we wanted to go to the beach, we’d all pile in. To the bars, we’d all pile in. If we wanted to go play a prank on someone, we’d pile in the van. We’d often drive down the streets around school with music blaring and the sliding door wide open. It was a traveling party and everyone was invited.

When Jackie! traded in the green monster after college, she was thrilled. The rest of us were BUMMED! It was the end of an era.

At the same time I was remembering Jackie!’s car, Jackie! was in a meeting with her oncologist to find out what the next steps in her treatment would be, and to hear the pathology results on Turk the Tumor. Dr. McDreamy told Jackie!’s family after surgery that, from looking at the tumor, he thought it was a slow-growing stage 2 glioma.

The pathology report disagreed. The tumor is a more aggressive stage three.

The oncologist recommends immediate chemotherapy and radiation beginning in the next few weeks. She is going to present her treatment ideas to Jackie!’s team of doctors, and the final verdict will come back next week. Then Jackie! has to decide if she wants to do radiation now or hold off, as in her case it can only be done once. She also has to talk to fertility experts about their suggestions for her reproductive future, as chemo and radiation can have adverse effects.

I don’t think I have to say how much this all completely blows. It was a stunning bit of news. Stupid tumor. Stupid cancer. If Turk was a person, I think it would be safe to say we all would have beat the everloving crap out of him. I personally would have broken his nose in at least three places – and you don’t even want to know what I would have done to his crotch.

I know Jackie! isn’t going to let this slow her down. While she isn’t going to embrace this crap diagnosis with the same zest she once had for the green monster, Jackie! has never been the kind of woman to let anything get in the way of her plans. She has big, huge plans, and none of us will be surprised when she accomplishes all of them.

I made a concerted effort to stay off my computer and blackberry this weekend, and it went pretty well. There were times, though, that I found myself reflexively digging through my purse, looking for the red blinking light of my blackberry. I’ll take “signs you’re hopelessly addicted to the internet” for $500, Alex. I’m glad it’s Sunday night and my self-imposed internet exile is over.

We had a very busy weekend. Friday night we had a friend’s 30th birthday party at a cool spot on the beach in Santa Monica. We brought Maddie, who was a little overwhelmed by all the people at first. She wasn’t quite herself, most likely because she was tired. Maddie has been on a sleep strike lately. She just will NOT sleep. We’ll put her in her crib during her nap times, and she’ll lay there the entire time, playing with her feet and babbling. So, you’d probably think that no nap during the day would totally exhaust an 8 1/2 month old to the point that she’d sleep a lot at night, right? But NO. She has been waking up every two hours. NOT OK. Can I grind up a sleeping pill and put it in her bottle?

Saturday my friends Leigh and Kim came to meet Maddie. Leigh lives in New York City and Kim lives in San Francisco. We had a blast catching up, and they cracked me up with how eager they were to hold Maddie, feed her, change her clothes, etc. I want them around all the time! They were in town for our friend (and my former roommate) Bella’s baby shower. Bella is due to have a boy in six weeks, a little boy they are affectionately calling “Tres” (three in Spanish) because he is named after his father and grandfather. And I know I said I wouldn’t ever do it again, but I caved.

The shower was lots of fun, and then I got to come home to Mike, Maddie and Rigby! We had a bit of quiet time – and quiet time means Mike and I tried to nap while Maddie laid in between us, kicking and babbling. Then Mike’s parents came over to take us to dinner. They’re in town for a couple of days to visit. I will let Mike tell the stories of his mom, and believe me, there are stories. We walked to a nice restaurant only a few blocks from our house. We’d pushed Maddie in a stroller, but lack of space dictated that the stroller be put in the back. I realized I’d forgotten to grab Maddie’s bottle out of the basket in the bottom, so Mike went to get it. When he came back, his eyes were wide. He lowered his voice to the tiniest whisper and said to me,

“Harrison Ford & Calista Flockhart are at the table behind us!”

Instead of turning around, I said, “is her kid there?” He looked at me and shook his head. “Of course that’s the first thing you’d ask me.” Well, I wanted to know! I was a little self-conscious about bringing Maddie to a nice steak joint, but I felt better knowing that her kid was there! After he answered in the affirmative, I turned slightly and saw Indiana Jones smiling at me…okay, he was smiling at Calista, but since she and I were sitting back to back, he was smiling right in my general direction.

We didn’t tell Mike’s parents about the celebs until after they left. And even then, his mom wanted to get up and run after them. I almost wish that had happened, but considering Mike had forbidden me to take a picture (something about being horribly embarrassed), his mom running after Harrison Ford probably would have sent poor Mike into shock.

I know everyone is waiting with baited breathe to find out how Jackie! is, so I’ll give the quick update. She went home to her parents’ house on Friday. I know, can you believe it? Only four nights in the hospital after BRAIN SURGERY. It blows my mind, I could have stayed in the hospital longer after my C-Section! She has to take pills seven times a day and she has an incredible 57 staples in her head. They’ll be removed on August 11th, when she meets with her oncologist. That’s when she’ll get the pathology report on turk the tumor. Until then, she is resting and healing, and getting waited on hand and foot by her parents and siblings. I can’t wait to go visit her.