A fun morning....

Yesterday the kids and I went to the Dollar Tree.  I told them that we were going to buy toys and candy for the kids at one of the hospitals that Maggie spent oodles of time at.

Now before anyone says anything to me about how candy is so bad for kids..... BLECH to you! :)  You see when a child is getting chemo and they have no appetite and/or are throwing up/having diarrhea on a regular basis, every adult around them keeps a keen eye on them.  EVERY day (at clinic or inpatient) they get weighed.  You watch that number go down and your child shrinks in stature.  So you give your child anything that sounds good that has calories.  So we bought LOTS of candy!  Lots and lots!  And toys - little things to keep them busy while they sit on their bed and let poison drip into their veins or wait for their counts to come back so that they can get OUT of the hospital.  We got some water guns (so that the kids can shoot their nurses) and funny glasses and puzzles and craft type stuff.  Did I mention we got CANDY?  Oh, I did?  :)

We had two carts overflowing!

Then we drove to Memorial Hospital.  We got a wheelchair AND a cart to bring all of our goodies up to the 6th floor.  Jared and Maggie and I got to hand out candy and toys to kids and their parents.  I remember sitting in that hospital room and receiving little toys for Maggie (and Jared when he was there) and how it would make her day (his too).  It would feel so great to see another kid who beat that monster and was living a happy life outside of that hospital.  It was fun to see our friends the nurses.

And I killed another bird while there (you know "kill 2 birds with one stone"...).  Maggie has another scan/picture time coming up and we need to schedule that.  The charge nurse and I got to chat about when to try to schedule the next one.

We saw a 10 year old girl who was bald and sitting on her hospital bed.  I assume it was her mom and grandmother were sitting in the room eating lunch with her.  I asked her what candy she liked and she said Nerds.  I gave her 2 big boxes (movie theater size).  Then I found another one and had Maggie take it to her. Jared got to take a Toy Story puzzle to a 3 year old little boy.   There were two kids that were inpatient over on "the other side" of the peds floor.  One was neutropenic - meaning the chemo had killed off their ability to fight off germs - so we couldn't go see them.  The other child's health is failing.

We didn't stay long - many kids were sleeping and we didn't want to disturb them.  Besides we made a big enough ruckus bringing up the wheelchair and cart with all the toys.  And the candy! :)  I meant to take my camera but in the hurry to get out the door I stinkin' forgot!

Trying to teach my kids that life doesn't revolve around them isn't easy - especially when life did seem to do so (especially one for well over a year), but I hope that doing things like that helps them to see how important giving is.

So much has been given to us!

Live BIG!