FinnDORABLE!

Ten Month Old Finn Townsend Dupin doing his Happy Thing! September, 2007

Kelsey & Dawn Marshall visit the Dupins,

Sept., 2007

Aunt KD requested a newer photo of Finn and -- thanks to that request -- I came across these two great photos.

(Doug had e-mailed them to me last month but I had failed to see them.)

One is a picture I had taken of Finn being his just usual happy self in his highchair at home, and the other is a picture from when our Marshall cousins came to visit.

Kelsey was selected for a leadership conference here in Washington in September, so proud mom Dawn flew here with her. We had just enough time for a quick visit on the Sunday before the conference started.

One of my most favorite pictures from Doug and my's wedding is one of Kelsey giggling as her sister Kailey prepares for her duties as our flower girl. Kelsey's just as cute as a teenager as she was at age two!

(And for any of you who haven't seen Dawn in a while, I swear she looks the EXACT same age as she did when she and Andy lived here ten years ago....don't you think?!)

Smooches before my Thursday night live shot -- Rebecca

My story today picked up on POLITICO and Drudge Report : )

As the fires continue to burn in California today...

This is an AP picture I kept from the Lake Tahoe fire -- dated June 25, 2007. Doug, Max, Gus and Finn were there and could see these fires burning every day from TuTu and PopPop's deck overlooking Lake Tahoe.

My story today on the federal response included a phone interview I did with former FEMA Director Michael "Brownie" Brown. It got posted on the Drudge Report today (http://www.drudgereport.com/) thanks to my pal (and Allbritton colleague) Mike Allen writing about it for POLITICO http://www.politico.com/. : ) Rebecca
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Brownie: Bush not doing heckuva job on fires

By: Mike Allen October 24, 2007 02:37 PM EST

President Bush isn’t doing a heck of a job balancing National Guard call-ups to Iraq with states’ needs back home – and that’s crimping the government response to the California wildfires, according to the man who took the blame for the botched federal reaction to Hurricane Katrina. Michael D. Brown, former chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told WJLA-TV reporter Rebecca Cooper in an exclusive interview Wednesday that the administration has not recognized how much of a “problem” it has with disaster response since so many National Guard troops are in war zones. He did not directly criticize the White House response to the fires. “The White House needs to recognize that we are overstretched and that there is a problem,” Brown said in a telephone interview. “They need to increase the size of the regular Army and stop relying so much on the National Guard.” Brown was the recipient of Bush’s infamous compliment in Mobile, Ala., at the height of the Hurricane Katrina chaos on Sept. 2, 2005: “Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The FEMA Director is working 24 — (applause) — they're working 24 hours a day.” Brown is now on the board of directors of Atlanta-based Charys Holding Company, which provides consultation on emergency planning, response and reconstruction. Cooper’s report on Brown’s comments will run Wednesday night on WJLA Channel 7, the ABC affiliate in Washington. WJLA is a division of Allbritton Communications Company, which publishes Politico. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) complained on Capitol Hill Tuesday that the ability of the state's National Guard to respond to disasters like the fires has been compromised because too much of its equipment and personnel are committed in Iraq, The Associated Press reported.
'Plenty of Guards'Brown’s successor as FEMA chief, R. David Paulison, defended the National Guard’s strength when asked about it Wednesday morning during a series of television interviews from Los Angeles. “I have not seen an issue with the Guard,” he said on CBS News’ “The Early Show.” “In fact, they're moving a lot of National Guards in here on the ground.” Paulison added on CNN’s “American Morning” that “plenty of Guardspeople” were available. “There’s emergency management assistance compact between states where we can move more guardsmen in,” he said. “The fact is that there are plenty of people on the ground.” Brown, who later was named first Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response, made the comments in response to an e-mail asking how much of a burden a catastrophe is for FEMA when a large number of a state’s National Guards are elsewhere during an emergency, and whether FEMA has the capability and infrastructure to be the substitute for so many Guards deployed overseas. "It doesn't affect FEMA as much as it affects the states,” Brown said. “FEMA's job is to pick up the phone and call another governor and say, ‘Hey, California is short on National Guard. Can you spare a few?’ “But you can call any governor in the country and everybody is stretched. Another problem is that literally some of these guys are home from National Guard duty in Iraq for literally five hours before they have to turn around and respond to something here, and that's not good.” Bush, who has led an aggressive administration response to the fires in an effort to show he has learned the lessons of Katrina, plans to fly to Southern California on Thursday to survey the fire damage and response.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said Bush will leave the White House early Thursday morning, participate in an aerial tour of the damage via helicopter, then receive a briefing by local, state and administration officials on the wildfires. The president held a video teleconference on the fires and talked with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) earlier Thursday.
Schwarzenegger thanked Bush on live national television Thursday afternoon.
TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.

-- John Ruskin

Update on Indira and Dermot's son Devan

These are pictures from a wonderful weekend little Devan and mommy Indira and daddy Dermot spent at our house in 2006. Isn't he beautiful?! The combination of a mother who is half Polish, half Indian and a father who is so many things I forget -- but a large dose of Irish and German.

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(see below this post for a post about the Cooper Dupin family weekend... and some memorable Doug Dupin Igloo circa Feb 2007 photos)

Indira sadly lost her beloved godfather Joe Ebersole to cancer this week. The Ebersoles live here and are practically like parents of one of my best friends so I'll be attending services for him. He was a HUGE fan of Doug's and the Palisades Museum.

Here's the latest on Devan from Indira's "Caring Bridge" website journal:

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2007 10:55 PM, EDT
Is too much knowledge a bad thing? It can sure drive you crazy. My reporter's instinct is to learn as much as possible about Dev's disease. But knowledge can be scary, particularly when it raises more questions than you knew to ask, and when you have little or no control over the outcome.
In an effort to plan for Dev's two-year "maintenance" treatment in the DC area and prepare ourselves for any possible twists, I've been reading hematology journals on APL. It's a whole new world of "event-free survival rates,” "RAR-alpha reverse transcript," "allogenic vs. autologous marrow transplants,” and “salvage therapy.”
Since Dev has tolerated chemo so well and his docs believe he is responding well, we have all been very optimistic about his beating this and becoming a long-term survivor. What I now understand is that Dev’s latest bone marrow showed him in hematological remission (the leukemia was zapped out of his blood), but not yet in molecular remission (the cancer is still in his cells). That's why they give three rounds of high-dose chemo followed by two years of lower-dose chemo: to kill off and insure those cells never come back.
The more I learn about his disease, the more scared and anxious I feel. In his type of leukemia, patients need to achieve molecular remission by the end of "consolidation"—in his case, after 3 rounds of chemo—and nearly everyone does. Once there, it is essential to stay in molecular remission, and most do.
But patients unfortunate enough to relapse at a molecular level relapse in their blood soon after. So at the first sign of cellular relapse, doctors pull out even-bigger guns than chemo: arsenic, toxic human antibodies, full-body radiation and bone-marrow transplant. All carry staggering risks and often irreversible side-effects. It's terrifying.
Pediatric APL has about 25% incidence of relapse from what I’ve read. Unfortunately, Devan has high-risk APL, because of his higher white blood count at diagnosis. One study said 59% of high-risk children enjoy "event-free survival" 10 years after diagnosis--which made me worry about the other 41%. One of our doctors commented that I could see that as the cup being more than half-full, so why fixate on bad things that will probably and hopefully never happen? Or you could say that statistics don't mean anything to a parent, because if it's your child, it's either 0 or 100.
We have been through the wringer seeing our only child endure two rounds of chemo and pseudotumor and brain surgery and all the complications…And we don’t want to go anywhere near the horror of relapse. Dermot says we need to remain positive and that my worrying about a possibility that we cannot control only distracts us from taking care of Devan. He's probably right. But I can't help wanting all the information so I don't miss anything or fail to do anything that could give Dev the best possible odds.
I wish someone could tell us that he’s going into molecular remission and will stay there forever and that everything will be fine; that in 16 years we’ll be worrying about college and in 30 years we’ll be meeting his life partner. I would do anything, anything for that to be true. I wish he would just be better and that all this worry could melt away.
Instead, I know that the next time he has a bone marrow biopsy, we will be in agony until the lab confirms he has gone into molecular remission. Dermot's not even sure he wants the doctors to do a bone marrow test at the end of chemo round 2, since we would be devastated if Dev were not in cellular remission yet, even though our doctors say the key is to get there by the end of round 3—and stay there. Every time Dev gets another bone marrow biopsy (every 3 months for the next two years, and every 6 months for three more years, and I think annually thereafter), we will have the longest days of our lives till they confirm that he is still in full remission, and we can go back to our lives…That fear is our life now…
Amid all this turmoil in his mother’s heart, Devan continues to be a totally charming little chap, and shows no signs of being ill. It's hard to reconcile his diagnosis with the high-energy, good-humored boy who greeted all his favorite nurses back in hospital and made a beeline for the playroom on his first morning back.
As I write this, I think of Dev's new roommate, a quiet adolescent with sickle-cell anemia, who has not had any visitors all weekend. No parent spent the night at his side. His only company was TV and a stream of nurses waking him up six times last night for his inhaler and shutting off his IV that kept beeping and waking us up. It is heartbreaking to see a kid going through this alone.
Thank you for not leaving us alone. Indira
P.S. Update: Dev’s ANC was over 300 today so they let him out, and we’re back at Adam and Monica’s for another conditional release!

Waiting for Winter... or at Least Fall!

It's 80 degrees in Washington today and our long Indian Summer continues. But CNN says it's 48 degrees in Oklahoma City today, so I should be grateful for the warmth. But we are missing our beloved DC fall weather, so I'm posting pictures of Gus in Doug's February 2007 Dupin Family Igloo to remind me that cold weather comes faster and harsher than I probably want.

The Cooper Dupin Family had an action-packed weekend, so here's an update:

Saturday -- 8:30 am: Max's "Orange Crush" (team name) soccer game. He played through the pain of his shingles and declared it "my best game ever." In actuality he actually opened his legs like a jumping jack to deliberately let the ball pass through TWICE when teammates tried to pass him the ball! But as long as he is having fun and THINKS he's good, I'm happy. Still, watching him play it's hard to believe he is the son of California's All-State Soccer team captain in 1984. But maybe Doug wasn't the best at 4 either. Luckily for all involved, no one in the family cares and we all enjoy the games.

Then it's off in search of birthday and baby shower presents and I'm actually impressed at how well Max and Gus help me pick out perfect baby presents. Max heads off to his friend Sam's birthday party and Gus and I clean house for the babysitters.

My dear dear friends from work -- "Uncle Edwin" (my photographer) and "Miss Gillian" (my intern) -- come to babysit and Doug and I get to go to a movie AND a party FOR GROWNUPS! Such a treat. We saw IN TO THE WILD -- one of Doug's favorite books and an incredible movie. I just hope he paid attention to the end... the part about the guy dying after his big wilderness adventure. He promised me after we saw the film he's not going to sneak off to the Alaskan outback. The boys and the babysitters meantime made 4 dozen Halloween cookies for Max's school fundraiser.

On Sunday morning I went to visit a mom from Gus' preschool class who just had her second baby at George Washington Hospital. Yikes! Her hospital was surrounded by police barricades because of its proximity to the World Bank, IMF and brick-throwing protestors in town for the annual World Bank/IMF delegates meeting. I made it through somehow and just loved being back in a hospital room with a new baby. Don't worry! I won't have another one -- but it still brings joy to my heart just thinking about those three happy hospital stays for my little babies.

Shannon and Josh came to town for Josh's surgery on Monday and they made an extra effort to get to town early so we could all go together to Max's school's annual Harvest Festival, while Doug headed to NYC for a work project.

We spent several hours on the school playground in the 80 degree heat, jumping on the moonbounces, hitting baseball water balloons, competing in soccer drills, checking out the cake decorating entries (two boys and a girl in max's class dominated the field -- placing first, second and third...although Shannon and I agreed that we liked the 2nd and 3rd place "really done by the kids" entry better than the 1st place "totally done by the mom" pirate ship cake) and Josh and I braving the Haunted House while Shannon carried Finn up and down the playground slide.

Then Finn and I napped while Shannon played with three screaming, happy boys!

It's now Monday night and Josh had his surgery at 6am this morning and is now home and resting. Doug is on his way back from NYC and Max, Gus, Finn and I are hanging out in the master bedroom. Max and Gus are jumping on the bed and Finn is "walking" in his walker chair on wheels, while Mommy just tries to keep her eyes open! Cheers -- the family

The video posted is a work of art in honor of Halloween approaching created by Doug, Max and Gus using a souvenir we brought Gus back from DISNEY ON ICE -- HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. I was pleased we found a way for both Doug AND the boys to enjoy a glass that lights up, since you had to pay $15 to get the glass and a Snow Cone in it at the ice show!

an update from Rebecca/ October 18th, 2007


poor max has shingles. but the doctor was impressed by how little he complains about pain. he's his father's son!

i was able to get free tickets for DISNEY ON ICE -- HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. max and i couldn't care less about the show but he and i took another mom and three girls who LOVE the show and were so thrilled with max for taking them.

gus is in love with a five year old girl in max's class. he helped me decorate the house for halloween today. then we went to get max at school before i worked the night shift. he brought a little halloween decoration as a gift for his new love. she loves the attention.

meantime finn is just as happy and jolly as ever.... except late at night when the new teeth poke through.... he's up to six teeth now! but the pain of the new ones coming through is pretty rough. still everyone who meets him comments on what a happy baby he is. he keeps us all laughing!

p.s. -- max and gus were AMAZING sunday night when i took them to the theater. Emily Levey was appearing in Steven Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG so i took them to the final performance. i had never seen the show so was a bit worried when it was all about a heavy drinking hollywood producer who cheats on his wife! luckily ALL of that went way over the boys' heads. they were just so entranced by watching live theater with seats very up close and real people on stage singing and dancing. they loved it and -- since they were the only ones under 18 in the audience -- the other theater-goers were very impressed by how quietly and in rapture they watched the show.

October, 2007
Dear Friends and Family --

Thanks to the magic of the website LinkedIn, I reconnected with my friend Sara Howard. Thanks to the magic of this website for customized blogs, I was able to see all kinds of pictures and news about Sara and Tony's baby daughter and life in St. Louis.

So welcome to the just-created Cooper Dupin family blog!! We assume grandparents will read this more often than most, but it does seem like a great way to share the news of everything the boys say or do that makes us laugh. Or groan. Or want to flee. But mostly just the things that make us laugh!

love -- Rebecca