Today is the one year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. This is actually a big day for me. It’s the anniversary of the day my life was turned inside out, and it has put me on a wild emotional roller coaster ride. Thinking about this cancerversary has eaten up all my energy and focus lately – right in the middle of midterms for my school and due dates for my other writing projects, as well as finals for daddy’s school, and his preparation for teaching classes next quarter, and all the other urgencies and emergencies we tackle day after day. Here we are less than two weeks away from your second birthday, and I’m just now getting around to writing this letter for your 23rd month. I haven’t even started planning your birthday party.
Don’t go thinking you are being neglected. You are by far the best part of my day – the one I will drop everything for, no matter what.
But it’s important to know that there are times when life is like this. There are times when everything seems to be coming at you from all different directions, right while you’re dealing with an emotionally heavy load, and you just can’t seem to get anything done. Forget everything, it’s hard to accomplish even one thing. It’s hard to focus; when you react to one urgency, 3 more show up right away from other arenas. You bounce from crisis to crisis, putting out fires without ever touching those all important items on your to do list…
Yup, everybody has days like that. It’s part of the human condition.
That is the most important thing to know about this situation. That when you are overwhelmed like this, you are not alone. Everyone else has been there, they know what it feels like. The details may differ, but the everything-all-at-once-ness of it is universal.
Lately, you’ve taken to holding your little hand up, palm out, and telling me to “Stop” when things aren’t going quite the way you think they should. I’m not quite sure where you got that from, it’s not something that I do, but that idea might be right where you need to start in order to get through a situation like this. Well, without the hand gesture. Most grownups don’t respond very well to that particular gesture. But take a minute. Stop everything. You might even need to tell people that unless someone is bleeding or on fire, you need 5, or 10, or 50 uninterrupted minutes to sort things out. Lock yourself in a closet if you have to, and take some time for yourself.
Taking a long walk is also a great option, if you’re in a place where you can do that. An outdoors walk is best. Yoga is also a great option for releasing nervous energy and helping you regain focus.
Then once you’ve expended a good bit of that nervous energy, come back and pull out a notepad and start writing. Write whatever. Anything and everything that comes into your head. Just dump it all. Let it all out. I call this the brain dump. I got the idea from the Artist’s Way, where you start each day with writing time. The idea is that all these little stressful bits and pieces of everything that you’re carrying around with you are keeping you from connecting with your creativity. While I don’t necessarily do pages every day in the morning, I do agree with the general idea. I find that all that crap floating around in my brain gets in the way of my productivity as well. So just empty your brain onto the page. Shred the pages when you’re done if you like, this is for you and no one else. You’re just clearing your head of all the noise and static.
Now you can start writing your to do list and prioritizing items. This whole process could be done in half an hour or less, but would likely be more effective if you invested a little more time.
Of course this wont make all those emergencies go away. But it will help you dodge, parry, duck, or deal with all the crap that comes flying at you.
I went through that process myself today, and as a result, I’ve decided that your birthday party is not going to happen in March. And since I have a conference and finals in April, it might even be later. I suppose we could just cancel the party altogether, but I do love getting all our friends and family together, and it doesn’t happen very often. I have also been looking forward to using your birthday party as an opportunity to say thank you to all the people who have been so supportive of us through this entire cancer ordeal (and I can’t bear the thought of missing one of your birthday parties). I still don’t know what I’m going to do as far as that is concerned. I just know I’m not going to put the time and energy into a party for this month.
I have already started rounding up and just telling people you are two years old. There’s a part of me that resists this still, but you are behaving like a two year old. Yes, the temper tantrums, and the back arching, and the constant testing of boundaries, but also a more sophisticated sense of humor, you can count to ten, know all of the letters, and draw these amazing little smiley faces.
We’ve had a rough, and very busy month. You even had your first Emergency Room visit with a significant fever and cold. But we got through it all, and we had a lot of laughs, too.
You bring so much joy to our lives. I’ve had a very difficult year, but there has not been one day since you were born where you did not brighten and improve my day.
You are starting to learn the power of manners, and the call and response of some of our social conventions. You’ve had Thank You down for a little while now, and you are getting so much better with Please. It’s so cute when you say please, you clasp your hands together and look up at me with those big, earnest eyes. Oh, I’m such a sucker for that look. But the one that really cracks me up these days is your discovery of the bless you response to a sneeze. I can tell when you’re going to do this, because you smirk and get a twinkle in your eye first, and then “ah… ah… choo!” you fake sneeze to see if you can get someone to say Bless You. You especially love doing this in elevators.
You are a very compassionate little girl. You’ve latched on to the word OK, and it holds a great deal of meaning for you. If I cough, or trip, or make any kind of an owie type of sound (my official line is that I don’t curse in front of you, even if I stub my toe) you ask me if I’m OK. “K? K? K? Mama, K?” You will keep asking until I say “Yes, I’m OK.” And then you give me the biggest relieved smile. Of course you also expect me to ask you if you’re OK if you stumble, or choke on your milk. Not that I wouldn’t anyway.
This carries over on the playground, too. If another child is crying, you’re right up in his face asking if he’s OK. But these poor kids don’t understand what you’re asking them. The other day you dropped your babydoll, Molly, and then you got down on your knees, bent down and kissed her, and asked her if she was OK. She didn’t answer, either. “K? K? K, baby?” Oh, my heart.
Grandma introduced you to Cheetos
You are so genuine; you’re not consumed with what others think of you. I hope you can hold on to that attitude. It can be really tempting to get caught up in the opinions of other people, and even put on an act to pretend to be the person you think they want you to be. I’ve done that myself on occasion, and I don’t recommend it. That approach leads you away from happiness, not towards it. Being true to yourself is the big part of being happy.
You’ve become quite the little monkey this month, climbing all over everything. You’ve always been a bit of a climber, you were climbing bookshelves as soon as you were walking. But this month, you managed to climb your way right out of your pack ‘n play.
I noticed your kung fu kicks while you were in there. I thought they were cute, but I didn’t realize how productive they were – until you hooked your ankle on the upper edge, and then pulled yourself up and over. Such strength! I watched in slow motion from across the room as you rolled over the top of the rail, and fell to the ground, landing on your feet, deep knee bend, then up to standing with your arms raised high and a big smile on your face. You stuck the landing like a little Olympian.
It was one of those moments where I was immensely proud of you, and at the same time, terrified. I’m not ready for you to be able to roam the house at will. Your crib rails are lower than the pack ‘n play, which means you can get out of your bed as well. I’m not sleeping much since your little triumph – I keep my ears peeled, listening for the midnight pitter-patter of little feet.
Your acrobatics are not limited to the escape act, you’ve also started turning summersaults. It was the funniest thing. You would start out in this deep downward dog pose, with your butt up in the air. You’d just hang there in that inverted position, looking around at the room upside down while rocking back and forth. After you’d done that several times, I decided to help you on over. You thought that was pretty cool! Then you kicked your legs over all by yourself in the slowest summersault imaginable. But, oh, my, what a grin.
I guess Daddy and I are going to have to start saving up some money for gymnastics lessons.
You couldn’t get enough of the tree this Christmas. We only put up a handful of ornaments, and made sure they were all safe for you to play with – but you still weren’t supposed to mess with the tree. I guess it was just to amazing to leave it alone.
Santa (or Sassa, as you call him) brought you toys and books that focused on letters and numbers. That was so perfect because you surprised us with being able to identify numbers in print. At least one through six, or as you pronounce them: none, two, free, foof, sigh, sick. You also know a few of the letters, odd ones like Q, and I. For other letters, I can tell you’re starting to get the picture. You held up a cutout of a C on it’s side and called it a U. Makes sense to me. You held up a V and said Y. How are you learning these letters? I haven’t been teaching you. You are such a little sponge, just soaking up information. Sesame Street is probably helping with that as well.
You are so precocious, and quite a handful. You’ve started asking why. You shush people when you put all your babies down for a nap. On the other hand, you are so sweet. You’ve been very protective of me lately. I’ve had a terrible cough, and every time you hear me cough you come over and say “K?” and keep repeating it until I tell you I’m OK. Then you smile and give me a big kiss. On days when I’m stuck on the couch, you bring one of your blankets (you call them buddies) and cover me up – and of course, give me a big kiss. You are very demonstrative with your affection.
You still sleep in that half crawl position with your butt up in the air, and your face plastered against the mattress. I love watching you sleep, but I seldom get to do it anymore.
I try to sneak into your room to peek on you, but I’m such a klutz these days, and you’re such a light sleeper that you’re on your feet before I get to the middle of the room. Then the following scene plays out:
YOU: Mama?
ME: Yes, Baby.
YOU: Hug?
Whereupon I melt into a puddle on the floor.
That scene plays out several times a day: in the living room, in your room, while we’re out for a walk, when you don’t want to go to bed… Yeah, I’m a sucker ~ But your cuteness hasn’t gotten you out of taking a nap. Yet. I am, however, loving all these hugs and kisses.
To be honest, most of the time you are really good about going to bed. I can’t believe how lucky I am. Daddy and I are both night owls, so we don’t like to get up too early in the morning. That’s means you don’t go to bed till 11 at night so you will sleep in till 10 the next morning. Yay for me getting to sleep in. It was also handy for those chemo days when I wasn’t strong enough to take care of you all by myself. My friends that helped take care of you would show up around 10 or 11 and stay until you took your afternoon nap at 3. Then Daddy would come home by the time you woke up from your nap. It worked out quite well, but the chemo is no longer an issue – I’m all done with chemo! Double Yay!
But when we do put you to bed, whether for a nap or for the night, you sweetly smile up at us from your crib as we cover you up with a blanket and tuck one of your babies under your arm. Well, most of the time. There are those nights when you have very strong feelings about bed time, but they are few and far between.
Regardless of how you fall asleep, the way you wake up is a beautiful thing. We’ve taken to leaving books in your crib each night, because you wake up and read them in the morning.
You love to go outside and play, and you would much rather walk yourself than ride in the stroller. But we do try to get in a good long walk everyday.
Snow was a revelation to you. It all melted away, but still you ask to go outside (sigh sigh – also your word for butterfly) and you ask for the snow. We look out the window at the bare ground and you tell me “gone.” I hope we get a few more good snow days this winter – preferably on days I don’t have to drive here in Seattle.
Your vocabulary is just exploding. It’s not just one or two new words a day, it’s several. Big words, like squirrel and butterfly, which is nearly unintelligible, but I know what you’re saying. You’re picking up on concepts, too. The other day when we saw the peacock at the zoo, you pointed at it and said “blue.” You just told me “thank you” when I gave you some apple slices. Make a note, I know you know how to say thank you. It’s de regueur for you now.
This month has been busy. Last weekend we had a memorial service for my grandmother, your Great-Grandma McKinley. We called her Grandma Candy because your cousins, Max and Ilona, couldn’t pronounce Grandma McKinley when they were little. The name stuck.
The picture above shows Grandma Candy holding you a few days after you were born. She hand knit the green blanket on her lap just for you. She was going blind and her hands were extremely arthritic. That means completing this blanket was a big challenge, but she didn’t let her fading eyesight or the pain in her hands stop her from making a blanket for you. Because she couldn’t see well, sometimes a mistake would slip through, and then great swathes of the blanket would have to be ripped out and re-knit to get it right, or “just so.” Grandma Candy would say “just so” when describing something that had been carefully and thoughtfully arranged. Someday when you are looking at that blanket, you will notice that a few holes and dropped stitches remain. I hope that someday you will understand how precious that blanket is, and that those dropped stitches are precious too. She loved you very much.
Along with the memorial service, we had a big family reunion. This was the first time for you to meet most of our extended family: your aunts and uncles and your cousins and second cousins and even third cousins. There are more degrees of separation in there, but I’m completely baffled by calculating whether someone is a second cousin once removed. I finally just settled on calling everyone cousin and left it at that.
You got along well with your cousins and you were charming with everyone. So many people stopped to comment on how sweet you were. Daddy and I were so proud of you.
Right after the family reunion, it was time for trick or treating. You were a zebra this year, fitting after all the time we spent at the zoo. You were a little scared of the costume at first, but once we got it on you, you roared. That’s your thing lately, you like to roar. So I should rephrase. You were a ferocious zebra this year.
I am baby, hear me roar
You still love to color and draw. It is your favorite way to pass the time. You lie down on the floor with your feet kicked up, and color for hours on end. I bring crayons and paper with us everywhere we go.
You sit on your green chair with the white polka dots, with your little bare feet sticking out and your toes wiggling while you fill up your journal with pictures like this:
I love seeing you so happy. There’s something about wiggling toes that goes hand in hand with happiness, too. You can’t stay in a bad mood and wiggle your toes at the same time. Try it. I dare you.
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