My little helper

I'm sorry for the lack of update on this blog in recent weeks. Just to give you a little update on Kateli's health. She continues to do well with treatment, and her health has been great over the last few months. We've had little colds, here and there but even those have been scarce. She continues to take her medications like a champ and doesn't complain about having to do it at least every night. I think I've mentioned this before but now that she's in maintenance, her clinic visits are every other week unless her counts are low the week of...in which case we are asked to come back a week later to recheck blood. Her numbers have been fantastic the last two months or so, she's remained above 500. In fact the last two times that we've been in, she's been really high but the nurse said they would wait 4 checks before they would increase any dose on her chemo. Kateli is growing, at her 3 year checkup she was 28.4 lbs, and measuring 32 inches (okay, I'm not 100% on the height), but nonetheless, she's grown. She's still petite for her age, as she remains in the 10-15% for height and weight, but she has that in her genes--she takes after her mommy, I guess. She's so grown up, not only physically but emotionally, and her mind blows us away most days. She's super smart, and she LOVES, absolutely loves music and dance. She loves to sing, and she loves to read books. She loves to pretend play, and has quite the imagination. Her favorite word right now?...hm, I have to say, hands-down, "porque?" ("why?")!! Everything is "why, mommÿ?"; I have to admit that I never thought I'd grow tired of answering her "why's?" but there are some days when all I want to say, and actually do a few times, is "because mommy said so" or "because God said so"...Sometimes that suffices, but most of the times she pauses for a second before following up with another...you guessed it, "WHY?" Anyway, she loves her little brother. She loves to play with him, she loves to hug him and she loves to teach him. She's a wonderful big sister. She's also a great helper. She helps do laundry, fold her clothes, puts her shoes away at night, helps pick up toys and messes, gladly runs into the bathroom if anything needs rinsing (she LOVES to run the water and play in the sink), she helps wipe the table after dinner, she helps put Joshua down for naps, and sometimes bedtime. Anytime I need help, she comes through and with a huge grin on her face. She is so proud of her accomplishments, it's great to see her growing up. Okay, so she sounds like a little angel, and she is, but she's also 3! So, I also do get some screaming, frustration and not so happy hearts from her during the day, but usually a calm talk help her work through things--and sometimes, just crying does the trick. I could go on and on and on about my little princess, but it's 12:30am and I should probably get some ZZZ'ss....more later.