Reptile Day

Over the weekend, I took Penguin Girl and Mr. Destructo to the Reptile Day organized by the nearby college's herpetology department.  We saw lots of snakes, geckos, salamanders, lizards, turtles, and a frog that was shaped like a tennis ball.  Penguin Girl handled every single one of the critters that she was allowed to touch.  She held a few snakes and a spotted gecko.  She even draped a 7-foot black snake around her neck.  (Yet the day before, she insisted on using a stick rather than her fingers to move a few earthworms that were languishing on the driveway back to the lawn.  Go figure.)

Mr. Destructo held the same gecko but it started to move around and he almost let it go because he didn't like the feel of its claws on his hands.  Luckily, Penguin Girl rescued the gecko from him.  Mr. Destructo wanted to try draping the big snake around his neck but I convinced him it would be too heavy.  I actually just wanted to avoid having to touch the snake myself in case Mr. Destructo got freaked out and wanted it off him in a hurry.  But there were a number of very small snakes at one station and Mr. Destructo handled all of those.  He later commented that he thought all of those snakes were "so cute!"

Spring Break Road Trip

I drove both kids up to New York to visit my parents.  Popo has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and she really wanted to see the kids.  While we were there, I went with my parents to my mom's first appointment with an oncologist.  My mom seemed to take the news as well as could be expected but she seemed like she did not want anymore medical intervention.  

The day after the oncologist appointment, my dad was really upset for most of the day, visibly crying as he went about his daily routine.  Of course Penguin Girl noticed so last night I had a talk with her about it all.  I ended up telling her that while we were at the hospital in Las Vegas the docs found that there was something unusual growing in Popo's body.  And the last time I was up here, a doc did a test to see what it was.  They found that it's cancer and that's what you call this illness where your body is growing cells that are not supposed to be there so it makes you really sick.  I told her it's very serious and Popo is having another test next week to see how much these cells have spread in her body.  If there is a lot of cancer, Popo may not live for a long time so she should appreciate this time we have here.  By this time the tears were just streaming down my poor Penguin Girl's face.  I told her it's ok to be sad but if she feels sad during the day and feels like she is going to cry, to just excuse herself so that my mom and dad won't see.  I said they love her a lot and they would not want to see her so sad because it will make them even more upset.  She was really quiet the whole time and I asked if she wanted to ask me anything but she said no.  This morning she seems a little quiet but otherwise ok.  She's already bugging me about when we're going over to her cousin's house.

In contrast, yesterday Mr. Destructo saw me crying when I was talking to my mom.  Hours later when I had my kids plus my nieces in my car, he picked that time to ask why I was crying.  I said I was sad that Popo is sick.  That seemed to satisfy him.

But soon after that, Aunt G took my oldest niece to a music lesson.  H is 10 years old.  When she was alone in the car with her mom, she asked why I would be crying.  SIL told her grandma has something wrong with her pancreas, that it's called cancer, and it's very serious.  A doc is going to do a test next week to see how big the cancer is.  If it's very big, grandma may not live for a long time.  My niece asked 1) can she catch cancer (no, not contagious); and 2) will grandma still be able to come to her graduation (we don't know).  No crying from my niece.

Other than the whole cancer thing being such a downer, it was a good trip.  All five kids had fun running wild together all week.