eight.

week eight of fifty-two

Though they are close in age, there are many regulated separations between things that almost 1.5 year olds can do versus things that newly minted three year olds can do. One of those is the local kids-only storytime at our public library. I guess I should restate that.. Miss Ingrid would be welcome to said storytime if she sauntered in and sat quietly for a half an hour (even the thought of that makes me laugh sarcastically: sit? ha! half an hour? ha ha! quietly? ha ha ha!). However, the last 5 minutes of storytime is a much anticipated puppet show. Miss Ingrid can find it in her antsy pants to sit peacefully and watch the puppets. I will point Amelia out to her, and Ingrid makes a beeline for her, plops down next to her, and Amelia introduces "this is my sister Ingrid" to everyone around her.  Be still my heart. 

It always surprises me how much they seem to miss one another after a 25 minute absence. 

Chicago, Part One.

Finally!

After months of house arrest (well, not really), we finally had a comfortable lapse in my medical appointments so we packed our bags and planned a short vacation to Chicago. We hadn't been for way too long - I think the last time we passed through all of those tolls (!!) I was a few weeks pregnant with Miss Amelia in 2009 -- so yes, WAY too long, especially when we considered how many fantastic friends we have to visit there!

We left early (like 5:30am early!) and headed south in the snow. The girls thought it was funny to ride in the car in their pajamas and Issac and I laughed when he announced that the weather resulted in the first time he had ever actually passed a car on an Illinois highway. Unfortunately, the weather foiled our earliest plans to meet up with some long-lost West Coast friends, but we managed to still enjoy a morning at the Shedd Aquarium in their absence. Highlights for the little ladies were the Beluga whales (one of Ingrid's favorite songs) and the sea turtles.

Even the ceiling is stellar in this place! 

Evan, Amelia, and Ingrid's reflection all checking out the turtle.

Transfixed.

The penguin exhibit was under construction so the girls were relegated to pretending to be penguins instead. What a cool interactive kid-penguin-slide thing they have going on at the Shedd!

BabyIngrid, 16 months young.

As the beautiful snow continued in Chicago, we made our way to our hotel in the suburbs for the first two nights of our trip. We chose to stay in the suburbs because we would be closer to our friends. Also, the farther you get from the heart of Chicago, the larger your room and the smaller the pricetag. Shocking, right?

I would be lying if I said that Issac and I weren't terrified about how the whole "two adults + two small children in a hotel room" thing was going to shake out. I mean, really, these kids go to bed at like seven pm, so what were we going to do from 7:01pm until bedtime? Sit in the dark? Certainly not watch television or have an actual out loud conversation. We have been blessed with children who are overall quite wonderful sleepers. What they are not, however, are those children who will fall asleep anywhere - never have they fallen asleep on the couch, on the floor, at the table, etc. Even falling asleep in a carseat is quite rare. Give them a quiet room and they're set. Put another person in it, and they're not. 7:01pm bedtime didn't sound much like vacation to Issac and I, so our remedy for this was to have some wonderful friends nearby. Said wonderful friends have a few quiet rooms where we could put these little people to sleep and the continue enjoying one another's company for a few extra hours before hauling sleeping little people back to the hotel. In exchange for their kindness and hospitality, we offered up our hotel's warm indoor swimming pool the next morning in an effort to tire out all of our young children. We succeeded, but also tired ourselves out in the process.

Sunday (as in Superbowl Sunday!) our friends were kind enough to invite our small circus back again for another evening of debauchery. Their little man shared his toys with grace and the girls schmoozed our friends with coy smiles and snuggles. Clearly, they understood that the amount of swimming time they talked us into was directly correlated to their positive attitudes.

Mr. E, ever the gentleman.

Kid magnets.

Amelia and "That Lady.. the One That I Liked"

Stay tuned for "Chicago Trip, Part Two." Or don't. It's not going to rock your socks off.

seven.

week seven of fifty-two.

I have to be reminded to take pictures of the very "normal" things sometimes. Everything I hear from those who have walked this parenting road before me is that when I look back on these normal moments in twenty years, I will be flooded with nostalgia and longing for the days when they were "little." 

Also, there are never enough photos of moms. Possibly and probably because we often tend to be  the ones behind the camera, documenting things. Issac was savvy enough to catch this pre-bedtime "book break" to document an extremely normal occurrence around here. 

When things get a little bit too busy or overwhelming or loud, one of us declares a "book break" and everyone gets to choose a story. By the end of three tales, everyone has settled down and the chaos continues as before. The girls love to read and are frequent fliers at the local public library. 

Issac and I are happy that our love for reading has extended into their little lives as well.

six.

week six of fifty-two.

Loving her first time on skis!
Lucky to be using Issac's skis from when he was a wee one!

four months out.

So, this week Thursday marks four months since my diagnosis. In some ways, it feels like October 16th was years ago. In others, it really doesn't. I still haven't been back into Gordman's, so I guess I may still not be over that initial painful shock of that inopportune phone call. Or maybe I just don't need any more bargain home decor, I'm not sure.

I feel bad that it has been so long since my last update about what has been going on. If I'm being completely honest, writing a status update has been really difficult for me. I'm not sure why. It has been on my mind and I bet at least once a day I feel guilty when someone says something like, "I'm just wondering how you're doing.. I haven't heard anything.. ..." I apologize if I kind of fell off the grid, I really do. I promise that I have read all of your wonderful messages (sometimes twice and three times!) but I haven't been ready to talk about it.. like really talk about it.

In high school once, we had this speaker come in to talk about something (I seriously have no idea what..) but he started off by trying to motivate us to always convey a positive outlook by answering "Good!" or "Great!" whenever we were asked, "How are you doing?" He said, "No one really wants to hear that you're 'just fine' or 'had a rough morning'.. they're just asking you that to be polite." I don't know why, but this kind of stuck with me, and I hate that it did. I think there are people out there who really do care if you had a rough morning. My 16-year-old self probably distorted this message completely; I don't think this guy was totally off the mark. Because he's sort of right: no one wants to hear every single day that you're having a terrible day or that you despise your job, or any of those other negative comments that eventually start to wear on a relationship. Still, I can't say that I would rather have my friends answer "Great!" when their answer is really, "I'm okay.." I like to think that I have always been a pretty open communicator, but sometimes the stuff that needs communicating isn't exciting or funny or positive and it is just kind of "Eh.." That is kind of where I have been. Nothing bad, certainly nothing to complain about, but a little bit of the winter doldrums combined with some lack of energy from my lack of thyroid. Throw in two toddlers with a stomach flu and BAM: that's February. ;)

Anyway..  I think that time should just stop when bad things happen: a little break to allow for some processing, some grieving, time to prepare for what comes next. I would say that I just needed some time to process this whole turn of events, but I would also be lying if I said that I have been sitting here doing a lot of processing. Pretending it isn't happening would be more accurate. I haven't quite decided if this is completely a terrible thing.  Readers out there with Ph.D.s in psychology (I know there is at least one of you.. hello smarty pants!) would probably examine my psyche and use some fancy terminology, but suffice to say I am probably wavering somewhere between avoidance and denial. It's weird, and I'm sure someone can tell me why my reasoning is all kinds of wrong, but I just can't wrap my head around why I should grieve about this cancer. It's kind of like if I do that, then I let the cancer win. It has taken up enough of my time already in surgeries and quarantines and doctor's office waiting rooms. I'm lucky: I have a cancer that allows me to not be in the hospital, I don't feel physically ill, no chemotherapy, I have my hair. It is nearly invisible to an outsider who doesn't know me personally. Not everyone is so lucky -- so many diseases and cancers and accidents, so many scary scenarios. Even if the very worst case scenario happened and I succumbed to my thyroid cancer, I still don't think I would look back and think, "wow.. I should have taken more time to process this." I think I would be saying, "I should have taken more time to play Go Fish" and "I should have rebooked that trip to Italy." Who knows, maybe I have it all wrong and I should be doing more 'processing' and worrying and stressing, but this is working for us right now.

So, since my last thyroid cancer update:

• I completed the radioactive treatment quarantine, visited the resident physicist to ensure that I was safe to go home and snuggle my wee ones, and did just that. 
• Spent an amazing mini-vacation in Wisconsin Dells with Issac and the girls, compliments of our very kind Minnesota friends. We swam. We laughed. We made memories. Amelia is still talking about it. 
• The day we returned from Wisconsin Dells, I had an uptake scan. This scan looks for the areas in the body where the radioactive iodine was "absorbed" during treatment.  Radioactive iodine attaches to thyroid cells (good thyroid cells as well as thyroid cancer cells). Similar to how a metal detector beeps when uncovering metal, the scan lights up in the areas where the radioactive iodine is hanging out in the body. Physicians use this information to monitor for potential metastases (spread of cancer). All of the "lights" should be in the thyroid bed in my neck. If there were "lights" elsewhere, it might signify spread of disease. My scan looked good. I also got to take a nice 1.5 hour nap, which probably hasn't happened since 2008.
• Issac had a birthday. It was pretty uneventful, but I did make him some kick-ass tacos and the girls made and decorated a green Rice Krispie treat "cake." Issac likes Rice Krispie treats probably more than any 31 year old man should admit to. If he had a blog, it might be all about Rice Krispie treats. 
• Amelia turned 3. I felt bad that her annual "Breakfast with Santa" was put on hiatus this year, but I wasn't sure where my energy level would be at and didn't want to overcommit to hosting an event if it wasn't meant to be. She was okay with it because she was still on Cloud 9 from all of the watersides.  
• Amelia's amazing little preschool closed it's doors. This was super sad for all of us, but the silver lining was some extra quality time together. 
• We spent a wonderful extended Christmas with our families. Many laughs. Very special.
• I had a followup with endocrinology in early January. They told me some very disappointing news - one of my lab results was not awesome. It wasn't terrible, but certainly not where they wished it to be, optimally. In light of this, my next big diagnostic scan will be sometime in December 2013. I'm not going to say that this was the worst news ever, but I took it pretty hard that I am going to have to walk around for the next eleven months wondering if I still have cancer or not. It seems like an exorbitantly long amount of time to wait to hear an "all clear." I decided that afternoon that 2013 will not be defined by "waiting for December" and again, I will fall back on my semi-support of avoidance/denial tendencies here and continue the 'business as usual' attitude. I will be seeing them frequently (like every-four-weeks frequently) as they continue to tweak my medications into the optimal ranges. Many pokes. Many visits to friendly neighborhood pharmacist.  
• My scar - it's healing pretty nicely, I guess. I haven't been doing anything crazy like putting all kinds of fancy lotions or creams on it. This is probably mostly because I'm lucky to remember to wash my face before I go to bed at night :) I'm not concerned about the scar, really, and the only time I felt self-conscious about it was immediately after surgery when I still had the creepy Frankenstein stitches in. Luckily, that was in October so I just kind of looked like I was very into Halloween. 

Yes, those are little snowflakes on my shirt. It's 10pm on a chilly February eve, cut me some slack :)

So, that's what's new. Or, that's what's going on. Nothing is really new, but I guess this is one of those times for the cliche: "No news is good news." 

five.

week five of fifty-two

 Pool Party, Chicago-style.

"Hey guys, follow me!" - Ingrid