Sunday, September 3, 2017

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2007. Mattie came home from kindergarten with one of his "builder's workshop" creations. In this workshop, his teacher gave him access to all sorts of items found at home like paper towel rolls, cups, containers, and cereal boxes. Just to name a few! Then the kids got to create whatever they could imagine from these everyday items. Mattie LOVED this workshop! As you can see, this was one of Mattie's very first creations at school. In fact, Mattie brought MANY of them home throughout the year and loved to keep them all. Finally we were running out of space and I encouraged Mattie to photograph them and save the photos instead! 


Quote of the day: Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. ~ Danny Kaye

This was the scene from my parent's neighborhood yesterday. They did not take this photo, it was posted on-line by a neighbor who lives on this hill. My parents live within the foothills.... right were the smoke is seen!

My parents were allowed to return to their home this morning. As you can see the foothills are all burnt and without vegetation. 

I am sure they were thrilled to see their house still standing and intact. Truly hard to believe this was possible, given the raging fires on the foothill right next to their house. I am quite sure they even have a house thanks to the incredible firefighters who have been working non-stop for days! I appreciate all of the caring messages we have received over the past day. 







Meanwhile, Peter and I went to our friend's house today to take Sunny for a walk in her neighborhood. My friend has been cleaning out her basement and apparently she had a big box filled with Mattie's creations that he made in the hospital. I suppose I should be happy to see this box. After all these were Mattie creations I haven't seen in a while. Nonetheless I wasn't thrilled to see this box! I am not sure why, other than I really wasn't in the mood to see this box, much less go through it today. 



When we got home, Peter and I went through the box and looked at the items one by one. Frankly some of these items I no longer remember, and neither does Peter. Most likely because Mattie created constantly in the hospital and yet only certain creations were truly of importance to him! 

You have to love this egg carton. When I popped it open, it was filled with foam people!

Do you like Mattie's sense of humor?! He created eggs out of model magic. One egg all the way on the right (middle row) has a pink smiley face on it! Hysterical no? 

The box was filled with all sorts of model magic spiders and bugs. Mattie even made spider webs out of pipe cleaners. This as the assortment we pulled out. 

A close up of three of my favorites made out of model magic..... a roach (tell tale Mattie), a cobra snake, and a spider with blue pipe cleaner legs. I saved all three of these and put them on Mattie's memory shelves in his bedroom.  

A close up of the roach! Don't ask me why Mattie was fascinated by roaches. I assure you he never saw a real one. Unlike myself! I really believe he loved my reaction to even the word ROACH. It made him chuckle, and it is my distaste for them, that fed his attraction. 

A close up of the cobra! After all these years, it is amazing to see some of his creations in perfect shape. 

Then we found this box that Mattie painted with all sorts of things and stickers. 

The box wasn't the surprise. The surprise was seen when you opened it up. Filled with clay and art work!

Mind you this was the box that Mattie created with and where all his items were stored in. Check out the label on the box..... "late effects books." Late effects is the term researchers and clinicians use to refer to the long term side effects children have from treatment. Which means that a child first has to be a survivor. I am NOT sure why this label bothered me so much, but it most certainly did. So much so that I decided to photograph it! Why on earth wouldn't someone remove this label before giving it to Mattie? It just reminds me when I see this that I did not have a survivor. It also signals to me that people just do not realize how certain things will be perceived in the future. 

I actually threw this box out today, but before I did, I captured a photo of the inside of the box. Mattie clearly drew in it and then attached Velcro circles inside (see the black circles). At one time, Mattie had objects he created out of model magic attached to these Velcro pieces.