bunny

This is me pinning the pattern pieces to the fabric. I did the pattern and my mom sewed it on her machine.
I'm embroidering the mouth and after I 'broidered the mouth I did dots for the nose. It looked like a pig but I didn't worry about it. And the eyes are safety eyes.
Here I am pouring bullets in my bunny. And those are my two favorite animals, named Pony and Lambie. They have pellets, so I wanted pellets for my bunny, to make it stand up. And to make it feel like Lambie and Pony.
Here I am stuffing my bunny. My bunny looks cute so far. I like it. I like it! I like it a lot. Oh, yes, I DO-OO!
Here I am sewing my bunny. We wanted that blurry picture there 'cause it could show that I was really tight-ing that thing and that I was doing it FA-AST!

[It is very important to Marian to have a favorite stuffie to sleep with, but the doctors will only let her have cloth items if they can be washed every day. We launder Lambie and Pony often, but thought it might work well to have a larger rotation through the laundry so I'm not washing clothes daily. Audrey also made her an awesome little dolphin with Grandma Donna while we were in the hospital last week. Hopefully she'll share it soon.]

it's a date

If you live in the Philly area, watch NBC channel 10 at 2:00 pm on Monday: Marian will be on TV!

There are hopes of having the segment available on their website. If so, I'll let you know right away :).

I'm gonna be on TV

Here I'm practicing the fairy for the TV interview. And they wanted to talk to me about my bone marrow transplant and why I'm getting it and other sorts of things like that and I showed them the T-shirts and I showed them how to make a craft that's a fairy. I liked it.
Here's this funny picture. I was trying to get away 'cause I didn't want any pictures and I was done with the pictures, you know! And I didn't want any pictures any more. And you can see the camera man and the TV lady trying to get a picture with me. It's for the 10! show.
[everyone there, the camera man, host Lori Wilson, and intern Lisa Reindl who "found" us--she's friends with our immunologist and saw him wearing a superstar tee--were so kind and great to work with. They got Marian to talk cheerfully for an hour and a half until she was just plain worn out. She announced "And now I'm done." And she really was! It will air soon, after editing & all & I'll let you know if it's viewable. ]

more crafts I did in the hospital

My friend Ella gave me some glow-in-the-dark fairies that I could have in the hospital and we made stuff for the glow-in-the-dark fairies. For the beading we use skinny wires to make different stuff and you put on tiny glass beads, and then you make it into something new! We made wands for them. We made a butterfly for them. We made a mama snake and a baby snake for them. I had a new IV so they put it up on my arm so could still use my hand and I liked how they did that. When I go back I'm not going to have an IV. I'm gonna have this tube connecting to my heart and out of my body there's going to be two tubes hanging out but the one that's connected to my heart is just one tube. And it's called a Broviac. And that will be nice because I will be able to use my hands for CRA-AFTS!!
I got some supplies from the TV lady. And I got instruction paper [construction!]. I got foamie stickers, I got Blendy markers. The play lady made a beach for me and I made a machine. And I made that bunny all by myself, with a tiny bit help. I will post the pictures about that later.
My IV was kind of hurting this day so I used my foot to hold the paper. And I have a tricky foot, you see! And the foot helped me cut. Bye bye! See you later!

And I have Vanderbilt scrubs on. I got my Vanderbilt scrubs from my dad 'cause he comed back from Vanderbilt. That's where I used to go to the hospital.

crafts I did in the hospital

I was talking on the phone with my sister and it made me really happy 'cause look at that giant smile. And here I am working on my Zelda and Ivy paper dolls [mom's post on paper dolls, including a link here], and I drew food trays for them. And you can see the coloring book that Elmo gave me. He gave me a coloring book because he saw that I liked drawing because I was drawing that time and so he gave me a coloring book. I like Elmo!
I'm drawing a house for my paper dolls Zelda and Ivy! I like Ivy. Ivy is the little sister like me. I made a stone roof. I made a stone chimney. And I made ivy all around the house.
And I drawed a picture of a fridge--a little fridge--and I made a remote and I made a shot. I made a microwave. I made a bottle of synthroid [one of Marian's medications]. I made a feeding tube. I made a bottle of formula. I made a bottle of water. I made a pill. And there's the bottle of methotrexate. And methotrexate is a kind of shot. And I made the tubing for the blood tests, and I made the two bottles. One of them are filled with blood. The other one is half full filled of blood. I like drawing. And these are for Zelda and Ivy when they get to the hospital. Bye-bye! See you later!

The hospital

Here is the Children's Hospital at Philadelphia. Everyone there is an expert. They are very careful. Why are they very careful? 'Cause they don't want the children to get nervous and the children to get hurt. It was good getting blood tests there than the other hospitals because a guy there took a blood test on me and when he poked the needle in it didn't hurt at all. At other hospitals, it's usually like they hurt a lot, but this hospital is very careful. When I got the second IV, the girl didn't look as smart; she looked like she couldn't do it, but POP! she could do it! I told her: "Oh thank you oh thank you oh thank you oh thank you thank you thank you. You are an expert!" My nurses were nice and they were good and they were careful and they were how they were supposed to be.
And this is a picture of me sleeping in the hospital after my first chemo treatment. All of my tubes are: I had stickers on my chest and a sticker on my tummy, and I had an IV (this is my first IV I had), and I had a blood pressure cuff on my leg and I had an oxygen monitor on my toe. And I had a feeding tube hanging from my belly and it makes me hard going to the bathroom.
Mostly I liked to watch TV. And we watched Animal Planet and we learned about a hippopotamus that lived with a family and they made a door that a hippopotamus couldn't open because if she opened the door she would sit on the bed and break it. And we also watched cooking shows 'cause I like cooking with my mom and I like going grocery shopping, even if I'm not a real eater. It will help me eat later. Of course. Bye-bye!

And ELMO! came to see me. And that was the first time I even met Elmo. I like Elmo.

a quick note from dad

Marian wants all her friends to know that even though she doesn't have very good computer access right now (thanks to Make-A-Wish, this will be remedied on her next, longer visit...more on this later I'm sure) that she's very thankful for all the good wishes and that right now she's doing fine.

Hospital life is sometimes exciting (Elmo visiting) but mostly boring (which is a good thing--drama in the hospital is undesirable).

Anyway, keep wearing your awesome superstar shirts (because you look awesome in them), send your pictures of you wearing them to three_goats@yahoo.com (or marian.grace@yahoo.com), and keeping thinking positive thoughts.

Marian will be home on Saturday and will update personally then.