The Skeem Family

It always seems like I am playing catch-up with this site but I know we have "followers" so that gives me motivation to keep my site up to date.  Well like I promised here are the medical updates; I went through the treatment and it was actually better than the tracer dose that they gave me.  I was able to battle the nausea with some strong medication and I think I slept through the worse part of the treatment!  After drowning myself in water I was able to get discharged after only 4 days, just in time for Brooke's 5th birthday.  After I got discharged from the hospital we drove to my dad's house in Houston and surprised him.  It was a pretty relaxing time all in all and I enjoyed spending some time with my Aunt Betsy.  Brooke had a pretty good birthday, she actually had two birthday parties, one at Grandpa Unger's house and one at school with all her friends and classmates.  I wasn't able to make her cake but we found some really cute ones and I was reminded why I like to make my own (who ever heard of charging $50 for a princess cake?!)  I went in on Wednesday, the 3rd and had my follow up scans to determain where the cancer was in my body and spent over 3 hours (Yikes!) in the CT machine.  By Friday I was pretty anxious that my Dr hadn't called me back so I decided to go pick up the records myself.  Here are the results:

 

 

 

Around and around we go.... I just got out of the hospital from another round of treatment.  I will post more later when I have the time and energy.

So I was laying in bed with Kimin and we were chatting about the kids and I started to think about the memories I have of each child.  I realized that my memories of Brooke when she was real little weren't as strong as they used to be.  I thought that a good way to remedy this would be to write it down.  Brooklynn was very much planned, we tried for her for many months and when we finally became pregnant with her we were beyond excited.  We thought that a fun way to choose a name was to have her pick it out.  How could she possibly do this?  By kicking.  So every night Kimin would massage my belly with vitamin E (for the hopes that I would not get stretch marks- way past that now, my tummy is a road map) and we would read baby names to her via my belly.  If she kisked upon hearing a name then that name would be saved as one of the possible ones, if she didn't kick then that name was off the list.  We went about this for many weeks and finally narrowed the list between I think it was "Allison", "Hailey", and "Brooklynn".  Well we all know which one won!  When she was born she was so beautiful (and I know all parents say this but she really was).  As we left the hospital I was sitting in a wheelchair so proud to be a new mommy and Brooke was crying (because she had to be in her car seat to leave) and as I was being wheeled out she started snorting.  Yes, my new, precious, sweet, beautiful baby was snorting while crying.  So cute (right?).  A few weeks after she was born I was changing her diaper on the couch.  She was so little and had this little bum and little poops.  I was dressed in my first "non-maternity" outfit and was feeling pretty good about myself.  Well I had that little bum in the air when Brooklynn decided that she wasn't done going poop.  As you might quess she (I know, I know, gross as it is) squirted that lovely breastfed, newborn poop from my forehead all the way down my shirt in almost a straight line (because she kept on pooping as I tried to lower her bum into the diaper).  Needless to say I had to shower.  Next she caught a cold and well you guessed it puked all the way down my shirt.  Come to think of it, I think that this was the same shirt.  She must not have liked it.  Brooke travelled alot.  Before she even turned 18 months she had lived in California, Texas, Arizona, and Germany.  She always loved to dance but never wanted anyone to see.  Kimin and I would have to hide around the corner and watch her dance to Baby Einstein.  There was one time when we were moving from Texas to Arizona and I had all our dining room chairs lined up against the back of the couch and then boxes smooshed up against the chairs.  I was packing a box when I heard this muffled cry.  It was Brooke but I couldn't find her!  I looked everywhere when finally I discovered her under the chairs, stuck, because she could not crawl out backwards.  She began to crawl at 8 months and by 10 months she was full on walking and not looking back.  She never once slept in a crib, always beside Kimin and I and was a kicker.  Finally around 18 months she decided she wanted to sleep in her own bed and from that moment on, she slept alone.  She always loved to be like mommy and insisted I put her hair up in a towel and wrap another towel around her body like a big girl.  After I had Alex she wasn't quite sure what she thought of him and mostly would ignore him and try to reaffirm that she was a baby by having me swaddle her and rock her back and forth.  She loved to color and would frequently color all over the walls in her room.  Often with a black or purple crayola.  We had to ban crayons from the house for a time.  She was a very picky eater and found her niche in ketchup, ranch, and..... hotsauce.  Yep, the girl loved the strangest tastes and would often suck on a lemon or eat various foods with a hotsauce.  One time when Kimin was deployed I was in the kitchen making cookies when I heard Alex and Brooke giggling and laughing.  I thought "How cute" but then got curious.  "What could they be laughing so hard about?" I thought to myself.  Upon walking into the familyroom I discover Alex (still swinging in his swing) with permanent black marker ALL OVER his face and arms.  Brooke had even drawn eyeliner on the poor baby.  He was loving it, especially when Brooke started to draw on her own face and arms.  You wonder "How did she get ahold of a permenant marker?"  Well she climbed on top of our desk, reaching on top of the hutch that sits on it, and found the marker.  I got the cutest pictures from this event.  I wanted to cry at the time (espicially when I stupidly tried to use a Mr. Clean sponge to clean it off and it ended up giving both kids a painful chemical burn) but now I can look back and giggle about it.  Brooke has always been my little singer and dancer and she has always loved the classic movies like: Mary Poppins or Annie.  She has always been my little brave girl and one time when I was really sad while her dad was deployed she came up and started to rub and pat my back.  Brooke has been a defender of right and would call you a pirate if you are a mean person (she now however, loves pirates now- Jack Sparrow in paticular).  She will belt belt out in ramdom "I am a child of dog" ("God", but that is how it sounds).  She has lately loved to ask questions and whenever we are in the car I know that I am in for an earfull.  Some of her favorite questions are "Mom, you love me?" or "What's this song about?" or "Can we eat somewhere else?" (meaning not at home).  She LOVES to go to school and love to ride the bus even more.  She once missed the bus (we didn't hear it stop outside our house) and was extremely upset.  She will always try to please her teacher, in fact one day she came home and begged us to cut her hair because her teacher would like it.  We waited a few days to see if this was forgotten but she now has short hair and is very happy about this.  She, like most little girls love Disney Princesses and think that they are actually friends.  She will oten strip down out of her clothes and wear a cinderella dress all day.  That is about all I can write about her right now but there you are, my ode to Brooklynn.