Monday, October 25, 2004

On Saturday morning, I heard Anthony and Emily awake at about 7:30 AM talking in Emily's room. I heard Anthony saying "Come on Em, make a sign." I didn't know what they were talking about until Anthony came in and said "lets go down stairs to have breakfast, I'm hungry." When I went to go downstairs, Anthony was standing on the landing with a big smile on his face next to a sign that said "We love you Mom and Dad." I gave him and Emily a big hug and asked why they did it. Anthony said "because I really do love you." How cute is that?

I really don't see how some people can go through life not wanting to have kids.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Happy Birthday Anthony!

Today is Anthony's 6th birthday. We had a kids party on Saturday morning at Chuck E Cheese and a family party at home after that. Anthony had a lot of fun at the Chuck E Cheese party. There were 12 kids at the party and they all had a good time playing games and going down the big slide. Anthony got many cool presents, too. He especially liked the Cyborg Attack Hot Wheels track and ImagineNext stuff. We put the Cyborg Attack together yesterday. It really is cool... We got him tickets to go see "Beauty and the Beast" on Broadway and we will take him out to dinner when we go see the play. He wanted that for his birthday, since he was a bit jealous of Emily when we did that for hers. He wanted to see the "Lion King", but we could not get discount tickets. However... Anthony's grandma called me yesterday and said she wrote a letter to the New Amsterdam Theater, where the "Lion King" is showing on Broadway and told them about Anthony and asked if they could give us discount tickets. They called and said they were giving us 4 free tickets to see it on Nov. 7th!

We were going to take Anthony out for dinner tonight for his birthday, like we do on everyone's birthday, but Emily didn't want to miss Karate. So, Anthony, being the nice kid that he is, said we could go out tomorrow night for his birthday. We had brownies with candles in them tonight anyway. He picked Moore's Tavern for his birthday dinner, of all places. He said he wanted to go there, since we didn't go last time. The story there is that Moore's Tavern and Escondito's are in attached buildings and we were going to one of them for dinner a couple of months ago. I wanted to go to Moore's and the kids wanted to go to Escondito's. We flipped a coin and it came out Escondito's, but I acted like I was disappointed that we didn't go to Moore's (I really didn't care. I would have a Margarita...if I had to). I think Anthony still remembers that and felt bad that we didn't go to Moore's. This is his way of making it up to me, I think.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

We went for a follow-up with Dr. LaQuaglia, the surgeon, yesterday at Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan. We got there at 10:30 AM and had to wait quite some time to see him because he had an emergency procedure in the morning and that backed everyone up for the rest of the day. It is a good thing we had to wait, though, otherwise we wouldn't have met Brooke Shields.

We were sitting in the new playroom playing the Shrek game on the Gamecube and they made me sign a release form (just in case we were on camera) for the Ronald McDonald House 30th anniversary celebration. They said a special guest would be there at 11:30. I thought it would be Ronald McDonald. At 11:30, in walks Brooke Shields. She took some pictures with the kids (Anthony was sitting right in front of her) and held a baby. At one point she looked at me, smiled and said "Hi" like she knew me. I smiled and said "Hi". Then I looked around to see if there was anyone behind me she might be talking to, but I was the only one there. Maybe I look like some Hollywood star she knows :-)

Anthony and the rest of the kids really had no idea who she was and would have rather been playing the video games (they shut them off when she came in).

After all the excitement we went in to see Dr. LaQuaglia, who went out to see Brooke Shields when I told him she was there. Dr. LaQuaglia kept saying the he was "delighted" with Anthony's progress. He felt the little bump on Anthony's chest that I had felt moving around a few months ago. He said it felt like a surgical knot with granulation and it was nothing to worry about. If it bothers Anthony when he is older, we can have it taken out, but otherwise it is not a problem.

Anthony was very good the whole time. He let Dr. LaQuaglia feel his chest without a problem and did everything he was told. He still wouldn't speak to anyone, though. I think he does it just to spite me when I keep saying "go ahead and talk to them".

After the visit, we went for lunch at Wendy's on First Ave and 69th Street (Anthony's Choice). We then went to visit the Ronald McDonald house to use the bathroom and see the HUGE fish in the tank. I think Anthony likes these visits because he gets to spend some alone time with me and he likes walking in Manhattan. I like the visits too, for the very same reasons.