The Family Plate

On Valentines Day this year we all went to the Painted Pot and made some cool pottery. If you haven't been, it is a studio where you can paint or make mosaic art to your heart's content. Then you leave your creations with the wonderful pottery worker bees and they steam it or burn it or fire it or churn it or whatever they do to make it look marvelous. Then you pick it up a week later.

With everything going on we forgot about our pottery. Yesterday I knew something was nagging at me- besides this unforgiving nausea I'm fighting- and it hit me our pottery had been at the Painted Pot for weeks. I dashed over there hoping they hadn't thrown out our hard work- our priceless, gallery worthy, and somewhat costly ART!

We made a serving plate with all our hand prints. The girls had a ton of fun and Noah had a blast. He loved having all the paint squirted on his hand but it was quite the task to get him to press his hand firmly on that plate and hold it for 10 seconds...pressing each little bitty finger down separately so it would come out just right. I think we all did a pretty good job!



The picture doesn't do it justice, I swear. We trimmed the plate in black and the hand prints and lettering really pop. Every single member of my family is much more artistic than I am so I needed a lot of help. The stick people I draw run screaming from me...it's that bad.

Here's how the discussion went down as we were about to paint the letters:

Cathy- "Daniel, there shouldn't be an apostrophe in our name, should there?"
Daniel- "Yes, that's our name- just plural."
C- "No, an apostrophe implies ownership. We don't own anything (ain't that the truth.) We're just saying The Kendricks and this is what our hands looked like in 2010."
D- "We own the plate."
C- "Ok, can we just do The Kendricks? I think the apostrophe is grammatically incorrect."
D- "It looks better with the apostrophe and again, it's The Kendrick's plate- we own it."

Can you see where I'm going here? It was pretty funny talking in circles about an apostrophe in front of the laughing sales clerks. If any of the Communication Arts smarties can back me up here I'd appreciate it. :) If Daniel is right- well, ok- post that too.

I made a small anniversary cake with our 'married' monogram and date. The girls painted various slimy creatures and Noah tried his hand at a salamander but mommy ended up painting most of it.



Those were only $2 each and they were a ton of fun to make.

Back to Daniel. He has been just wonderful. He's pretty stressed and a lot of times it shows, but he does everything he can to make things easier for me.

We have family in from out of town and last night we went to dinner. It was getting late and all the kids were very, very tired. Noah wanted to cuddle and he plopped his head- - you guessed it- - smack on my left side where I just had surgery and still have plenty of blisters from that dag tape they put on it. Let's say his head weighs- oh I don't know- four pounds. The pressure of his little head on the 'wound' and blisters was almost unbearable. I refused to move him. He was tired; he was looking for solace from his mom. I cringed and cringed and the tears starting coming; he must have hit it just right. I stroked his little fine hair and he began to close his eyes. Daniel noticed my tears and said "Oh, sweetie...." and gently removed Noah and took Noah's weight onto himself. Not a big ta-doo, no drawing attention. He just knew I was in pain and I wasn't going to move that boy myself when he needed me. I'm sure Daniel didn't even mean it as such- but what a nice analogy of a marriage.

The family went out to brunch today and I am home to rest. It's beautiful out and I'd rather be outside. I've been trying to be 'normal' this week but yesterday I really started to notice a difference. Carrying Noah for too long winds me. It isn't earth shattering- I just have to pace myself more now.

On a brighter note, the lump is already gone!! Can you believe it? I'd been told by a few people with the same disease that sometimes just one chemo session makes a sizable difference in any symptoms or physical lumps. In the last two days we noticed it getting smaller (look back at the wig pictures before chemo even started. I'm telling you, it was hardly visibly noticeable at all but you could feel it by touch... probably a little smaller than a golf ball inside the neck) Now you can barely feel it at all. That must be some type of good sign, right? Hopefully the drugs are in there obliterating those cancer cells!

As a final note- some of your comments absolutely crack me up so keep them coming. I'll give just one as an example. From my great friend Faith that I met in Steelville, the very small town in which I attended high school:

Let me know if I can do anything. You know you have friends here in Steelville that could have a fund raiser or a hog roast or something to benefit you! Let me know! I love you! faith



I am soooo not making fun of Faith, or of Steelville for that matter. In fact I wrote Faith before posting this to be sure she didn't think I was poking fun at her. For some reason I find the offer of a hog roast in my honor one of the funniest things I've heard in a long time. I love you Faith, and while I'm not worthy of a fund raiser in my honor- your post cracked me the heck up. :)

Thanks all for your uplifting comments.