Jackson Phelps

Mike and Jackson have been intensely watching the Olympic games and rooting for the USA and especially for Michael Phelps as he makes Olympic history.

"Are you going to be like Michael Phelps, Jackson?"

Jackson ponders this

"Do they allow you to wear floaties in the Olympics dad?"

"Yeah, baby, they'll let you wear your floaties."

"Oh. Then I WILL win."

The Dilleys Big Adventure

When you trek across the California desert you drive past this old diner whose only notoriety stems from the two giant dinosaurs outside. My sister and I have long been obsessed with this place mostly due to its appearance in the cult classic, dare I say, film Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Pee Wee eats at the dinosaur diner only to discover his wallet has gone missing and he is forced to wash dishes to pay for his supper. Pee Wee befriends the waitress and together they watch as the desert sun sets from the mouth of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. As children we used to plead with our parents to please please stop and let us eat at the dinosaur place. Our desperate pleas were to no avail. Now I am grown and I have a driver's license and a car and a job and if I want to eat at the dinosaur diner of my hopes and dreams I am well within my rights as an American. Michael is hesitant but willing to acquiesce for the sake of the children (a category in which he feels I'm included).

We parked our car and explored the amazing plaster monsters of the past. We then head into the diner to score some breakfast. I can already taste the pancakes and am so excited to sit on a shiny red swivel stool and meet my new best friend, the waitress.

Immediately upon entrance I sense something is amiss. The diner, i.e. dirty truck stop, is not silver and red and shiny, it is brown and wilting and dumpy. It has faded gold brown carpeting and every piece of paint a Buffalo by numbers "art" has a price tag dangling down onto the wood paneled wall. I think to myself, oh well truck stops and dives always have good breakfast - and you can't screw up breakfast, right? I shoot Mike a reassuring smile in response to the "this is all your fault" glare he's shooting me. We open our menus to find fairly typical breakfast fare but the twist is that eggs, hash browns and toast are $11 bucks. This isn't a resort people. Michael's irritation has risen with the prices but we order up our breakfast with the intention of eating quickly and finding our escape. I always try and be empathetic to restaurant staff when the place is packed and everyone is scrambling to to grab sides of ranch for each of their seven tables so I completely understand it taking 25 minutes to make scrambled eggs. The other table with people in it must have needed ketchup. When the food finally arrived it was possibly the worst breakfast I have ever not eaten. Mike had gone scrambled and you could make better eggs over the campfire out of powdered egg substitute. I went over easy and received yolks you could use as door stops. We both had toast that was completely soggy save the rock hard crusts. We signaled for the check and $47.82 later we were free of the diner's talons.

My children will now spend their childhood driving by the dinosaurs in the desert pleading from the backseat for mom and dad to please, please stop.

Never.

It seems like only yesterday.......

that it was July 8, 2004 and I was sitting alone in the dark of the movie theater not really watching Spiderman 2 and bawling my eyes out and rubbing my expanded middle as the knowledge that my first child would be born the next day washed over me.

July 9, 2004 5:47 pm all 6 pounds and 10 ounces of Jackson Cole Dilley joined the world and changed our lives forever. He was beautiful. Not at first, of course, with his bruised squished alien head; but he quickly became this little sweet creature with clear blue eyes and a heart shaped mouth. He was so pretty as a baby that dressed in blue from head to toe and carrying a blue blanket strangers would stop to remark about how pretty "she" was. He would lay in is little moses basket and coo like an angelic (disease-free) pigeon.

AND NOW MY BABY IS 4!!!!

Four years old just feels like such a big boy. I feel like the threshold of time has been crossed in a very poignant way and I find part of myself grieving for my son's baby/ toddlerhood. And with Finn crossing into toddlerhood from babyhood at the same time I long for time to slow down and reverse. When did my babies grow up? How did four years slip by me? And NO, it is NOT time for another baby. The night before his birthday I took my camera in his room and took a bunch of pictures of him. I wanted to capture his last moments as a 3 year old. I gave him a huge hug and a kiss and told my baby, "the next time I see you - you'll be four." I wanted to cry. He was thrilled.

Because his birthday was on the heels of our California vacation / Disneyland trip we ditched out on his birthday a little, but we do want to say a huge thanks to everyone who made his 4th of July/ Birthday/ Batman Barbeque such fun and also his wild Peter Piper Pizza extraveganza.

The happiest place on earth

We had an action packed summer vacation this year that included (naturally) a fun filled trek to the happiest place on earth - Disneyland. Jackson has had a few go rounds at Disney already, but this was Finn's first. (Honestly we would have ditched Finn if we could have but no volunteer babysitters were forthcoming and so we made the most of our family outing.) Jackson's very first ride ever was Pirates of the Caribbean and so he thought it should be Finn's as well. Finn sat very still with very large eyes - I don't think he quite knew what was going on. He got the gist rather quickly.

Jackson was big enough for a little more adventure this year, meeting the 32 inch height requirement, and he got his first taste of Star Tours and Splash Mountain. Jackson, who will tell you Splash Mountain is his favorite ride, had to ride Buzz Lightyear 3 times.

Finn's moment of glory came with the parade. I had accosted front curb seats right along the parade route and Finn in his stroller had never been witness to such amazement. He clapped and bounced and smiled through the whole thing. He was so excited he repeatedly forgot that he was chewing and let goldfish crackers simply fall from his open mouth.






I would like to tell you how we topped off the night with the amazing Fantasmic sky show and fireworks, but Mike made us leave.

Better late than never?

Death to the Goiter!

Finn underwent his second and final surgery at Phoenix Children's. His surgery was scheduled for 11 am with a check in time of 9 am and he would not be allowed to eat or drink after midnight preceding the day. I knew this was going to be tough - how do you explain to a 15 month old that he cannot have his morning "ba ba" or any thing to eat because he might asphyxiate during surgery? And seeing as he gets up at 6 am I knew I'd have 5 hours of one sad Finn. All of this was before the hospital called me the day before to inform us that Finn's surgery had been pushed back to 2 pm and that we should check in at noon. I asked the nurse how a 15 month old was supposed to cope without food for 8 hours she told me I could wake him up in the middle of the night and feed him as long as we were completely done by 3 am. Super, says I.

I decided to try and keep him up late and made sure he ate and drank as much as possible. I also woke him up at 2 am and brought him in my room with a DVD and a huge bottle of whole milk / half n half (I was going for calorically dense). Sweet little guy didn't know what was going on and he wasn't really in the mood to eat at 2 am but we did our best and he thought the whole ordeal was kinda funny. He was still up by 6:40 am and spent the morning as I had known he would crying on the kitchen floor in front of the pantry - it was really too pathetically sad for words. The silver lining was that his lack of sleep had him down for a nap by 9 and he was still asleep as we shoved him into the car and headed down to the hospital. He had fun in pre-op running around playing with a giant pit of toys. They gave him some extremely girly PJs and even better some Versed! The Versed was given to him orally and within 5 minutes Finn was completely and utterly stoned. He was glassy eyed, drooling, and smiling away. It took 2 minutes for him to register the nurse waving at him and to wave back. Can we get some of that for home?

The surgery itself was over 3 agonizing hours and again the worst part was handing my baby off to some nurse and watching him carried off down some hallway. I'm tearing up just typing that - wow. The procedure went very well and the micro surgeon came out and told us that he had removed a mass the size of a golf ball from Finn's neck and that it had been entwined with the nerve that gives him feeling to his earlobe, the nerve that allows him to raise and lower his shoulder, as well as his jugular vein. The micro surgeon likened it to cancer removal, but said that Finn did very well and that there should be no lasting damage.

They let Mike and I go back into recovery and I just rocked him and held him for an hour while he tried to shake off the anesthesia. Mike and I were both shocked by the size of the incision - but it was really tight and looked really good. Now I'm just telling myself that it will be a really sexy Indiana Jonesish jawline scar that the ladies will love.

Finn and I spent that night in the hospital and were able to return home the following day. His 1 and 6 week post surgical exams went well and (knock on wood) this is behind us.

Now if only those hospital bills were behind us.......sigh.......