There's not a lot of history of cancer in my family. I have one cousin who had a childhood form of leukemia. He survived it. That's just about it as far as we know. I use to morbidly joke that that just meant I'd be the first to have it... until this morning when I found out my grandpa has a large tumor in his bladder. They're giving him 6 months to a year, but he's so depressed over my grandmother's death in December, I don't think he'll last more than 8 weeks. I hope he makes it that long because Juju and I are going out there in June and I want to see him again before, well, before the inevitable.

I'm not sure how to feel. He is just miserable without my grandmother. He's lonely and sad and has just removed himself from life by holing up in his compound in the mountains. I think death will be a relief to him. On the other hand, I'm running out of grandparents. We have an odd bond. I'm trying to put it in words, but everything sounds wrong when I type it up.

You know that dad & daughter bond? I kind of have that with my grandpa too, but in a much more sarcastic and gruff way. The man will never tell me he is proud of me, but... he also doesn't give me "suggestions" for what I could be doing better. That's pretty much a compliment coming from him! And there's the occasion when he forgets and calls me "our golden girl". I'm always that towheaded, bubbly little girl to him, even though I've got a kid of my own and I don't know that anyone would ever think of me as bubbly now.

My dad's an only child, so my parents are figuring out coming back to the States for a few months. Maybe we'll stay longer in June. I'm so thankful that Jason has been okay with me staying at home with Juju. It's so much easier to be flexible when I don't have to hold down a structured job. (Ya know, I recently saw a post on the front page about how stay at home parents are lazy. Awhile ago I did a post about a day in our life. Maybe as a refutation of that article, I'll do it again. I didn't comment on that person's post because they are rude, inflammatory and kinda evil (their April Fools post this year was so far over the line, I'll never visit their site again.))

Sometimes I am just... a complete moron. So I'm having this kidney stone thing. It's manageable with pain meds and I'm drinking a lot of liquids and hoping to pass it on my own. Every Monday, I co-lead a group of moms on a 5k walk around one of our parks. The other leader, Robin, had a sick kid so she couldn't go. I felt like I especially needed to go since she wasn't going to be there. I did let the girls know I was a little under the weather. I didn't take any pain killers this morning (I had to drive and they make me too woozy.). Still I kept us at a decent pace and I felt okay during the walk. Afterwards at the park though- the pain kicked in. My son was having a great time and it's beautiful cool day, so I just curled up on a park bench and let him play.

When we finally got home, I started feeling really, really bad. I took some Oxycontin and it's helping some. I really should have just said no to the walk. Maybe it's because I'm a firstborn, but I always feel like if someone is depending on me, there is no other option but to come through. Even when I have a legitimate excuse or it's something that really shouldn't be my responsibility, I still take it on. There are other girls who know the trail we take Mondays, but none of them responded to our texts. What if only new people showed up? One time Robin and I got too far ahead with the main group and a couple stragglers took a wrong turn and ended up wandering through the orange groves for an hour. Robin laughed and told them that next time they'd try to keep up better, while I felt horrible about it for a week!

I don't want to be a person who doesn't keep her word, but I can't do what I did today either. I don't say yes to every time someone asks me to do something, but once I've committed, I don't allow for the reality that I could change my mind and people could make adjustments and deal with it. To me, that would be a huge failure. Failure is pretty high on my list of fears. It's under sharks, but above public bathrooms.