Trying to focus on the positive :)

Fiona has over 10 words now. She is so cute. She adores her yellow ducky and toddles all around the house saying, "Ducky, Ducky, Ducky." She was so sweet and cute today it was ridiculous.

Chemo side effects have kept me from updating the blog. I'm trying hard to focus on the positive. I read over some of my older posts and I hope I don't come across as whiny--I am more interested in documenting the facts but sometimes it might sound like complaining. I am truly, truly super grateful that I am going to be made well and that I have all of this amazing help in the meantime. Clearly the whole mother guilt thing has been a strong theme as well--I sound like a broken record player. My doctor does say, however, that with each week I seem to be calmer and that I appear to be settling into the situation, so I suppose that is progress.

To quote dear Marjorie Pay Hinckley, wife of the late Gordon B. Hinckley, former Pres. of the LDS Church, "I'm not complaining, I'm just explaining." It is somewhat consistent--I have a little more energy Monday-Wednesday, and then Wednesday night or Thursday morning my symptoms sort of all converge and make life, well, painful. My mouth hurts, I'm exhausted beyond belief, I get a headache, some hot flashes, the bone pain commences, the heartburn worsens, and this week we have a new and exciting symptom--tingling in the fingers and toes that began Thurs. and has worsened to the point where I can't do a whole lot with my hands (typing is somewhat uncomfortable). This is apparently not an uncommon side effect but I will be anxious to ask the doctor tomorrow if it is expected to come and go or if I've lost most of my manual dexterity for the next couple of months (I hope not beyond?). It's kind of disconcerting. I'll also be very interested to know if I have to go to 5 shots every week or if I get to keep on the every-other-week schedule.

Enough of that though. Here are some happy things:

Tonight was the first time since this whole thing began that Tom had to make dinner. Incredible. With three scheduled meals a week, ample leftovers and more people just spontaneously showing up with food, we've pretty much had ready-made dinners every night. What a blessing.

Our nanny began this week. She comes all day Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, which couldn't be more perfect. The house is cleaner and the kids do fun things like swimming and going to the park. I only hope the boys don't run her ragged. She is wonderful.

The free massages I get each week are so nice. Another incredible blessing.

I was too wiped out to go to church today, but when Tom came home he had a great humorous book and some other reading suggestions from a friend who had cancer years ago. I dug in and was reminded of something I'd learned during the very trying circumstances I experienced during my pregnancy with Miles--laughter really is the best medicine. During that time when lack of nutrition, and hormones gone amok sent me into an extreme depression (which I will say was BY FAR more difficult than what I am dealing with now--one such episode was enough to convince me that anyone who deals with clinical depression is a true hero--more on that another day...), my one solace was curling up at the end of the day with Tom and reading humor by Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby or Dave Barry. We have continued to enjoy reading humor and watching stand-up comedy together over the years. For some reason as I've felt a little more down the last couple of weeks, I've forgotten to get in my dose of humor. Thank you to my friend for reminding me of how important that is. I am feeling much more upbeat this evening than I have in a little while.

I'm addicted to these Ghiradelli chocolate caramels that my old roommates sent me, and just when I ran out a week or two ago, I went to my infusion and at the front desk they had a whole big jar of them. When I remarked how much I loved them, they said, "Take them. Take them all. Someone brought these and we'll have more candy tomorrow." So I took them. Mmm. And the day I ran out I was at Rite Aid picking up medicine and they had them on sale so I got more.

I found out this week about another friend who is expecting. Hooray! So exciting.

Both of my boys are getting pretty good at singing harmony for some of the songs they choose to have us sing at bedtime. Awesome. Philip has experienced a resurgence of Superhero mania the last few days, so that has made me laugh. He changed personas about six times today. He also told me that he would always protect his sister from the bad guys.

My niece is home from college and will be here for a month until she leaves on her mission. She is taking Philip and Fiona all day tomorrow while I'm at the doctor's, and Phil is so excited to see her and my nephew who is also home for a while until he leaves for missionary service as well. I have to take a walk down memory lane here; I am feeling nostalgic because Tom just had all of his mission photos professionally scanned and we were watching a TV slide show of them today (thus the first two pictures up above)...when I met these kids they were 8 and 6 and I was dating their Uncle Tom. I went with their family down to Fresno to attend his missionary farewell. I was 19 and I was not going to be one of those girls who "waited" for her missionary. I had a friend who called it being "shelfed." It seemed to me most of the girls who vowed they'd never date another man for two years broke down within a few months and suddenly married some other random guy. Tom was my best friend and the only serious boyfriend I'd ever had, but we were super young and just not in a place where we we were going to commit to eternity together.

So, the following car-ride conversation with my niece was a tad bit awkward:

Her: How long is Uncle Tom going to be on his mission?
Me: 2 years.
Her: That is a long time. Won't you miss him?
Me: Yes, I think I will.
Her: Why don't you go with him? Can't girls go on missions?
Me: Yes, girls can go on missions, but they usually go when they are 21.
Her: Oh....oh, no, you wouldn't want to do that, because then that would be a REALLY
long time before you got to see him and you love him and you are going to marry
him and you are going to be my Aunt Amanda, and I am going to call you Aunt
Amanda. That is what is going to happen. I can feel it in my bones.

Later during the church service she sat next to me and put her little fingers on various parts of my face as if she were somehow measuring me, repeating over and over, "Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. You are going to be my Aunt Amanda, and I will call you Aunt Amanda." There was certainly a part of me who thought it was a swell plan. I really wanted it to work out, but I intuitively knew that if I didn't date anyone for two years, it just plain wouldn't. So I dated other people, had an enormous amount of fun, and was even convinced that I was going to go on a mission myself until he came home and I was reminded of how wonderful he was--actually, he was the new, more confident, improved version and he was still remarkably romantic. I quickly became "Triple A" to his local nephews and niece, the AAA standing for "Almost Aunt Amanda." It had been kind of annoying, actually, that I had announced to just about everyone that I was going to go be a missionary, and I had opted out of school and everything, and it seemed like no one took me seriously. They all said, "That is so cool, you'll be a great missionary," and then the next time I'd see them it would come out that they'd completely forgotten about it. A total mind block for multiple people.

The whole time Tom had been across the world in Chile, if I talked about other guys, my brothers would say things like, "Is he as smart as Tom?" or "Hmm...I think I like Tom better." I started wondering if he'd paid them or something. When he'd been gone for about a year and half and I hadn't written him a letter in months and honestly hadn't thought much of him in weeks, I had the only "normal" dream I think I've had in my life. I am notorious for having wild and crazy, completely nonsensical dreams; Tom tired long ago of hearing, "I've got to tell you about this bizarre dream I had last night..." None of the dreams connect right at all. This one night I dreamed that I was pregnant in the kitchen making dinner and my husband Tom came home and gave me a kiss and that was the whole thing. I woke up and thought, "okay," and went back to sleep and then in the morning I thought, "why did that seem so normal?"

So clearly it was the better choice to forgo the whole mission thing and hang out with my true love instead...but it took some boldness on his part and some wise words from my father to convince me. Dad said two things. First, "I think Tom is a fine young man and nothing would make me happier than if he asked me to marry you some day." Second, "I will support you in whatever you decide. You know, though, if things don't work out with him, you can always go on a mission in six months." Aside from feeling a little sheepish because I now had to un-tell everyone about my big mission plans, I felt totally at peace when I went to bed that night with the intention of sticking around for a while. I thought, Duh, I don't have to decide I'm going to marry this person next week. I don't have to decide I'm going to marry this person at all. But somewhere down the line I just might want to, so why not give the relationship a chance?

Um, yeah, it didn't take very long to figure out I was totally into this guy and I was dang lucky he hadn't had much of a chance to explore other options besides me...People at college were almost weirded out because I had previously been someone who was seen by the guys as the "kid sister" type and by many girls as a flirt--constantly sitting on a guy's lap or being given a piggy-back ride. Queen of the no-pressure date--I was the girl who the guys were really comfortable around, she was so darn friendly, you could just go have a good time last-minute and she'd give you lots of hugs but no kisses, and there would never be a pause in the conversation. My never-ending complaint was that at 5'3" with a sunny, inclusive personality, I was eternally labeled as CUTE when I longed to be beautiful. I lacked mystery, but that frustrated me because the very most important quality to me in life was being genuine, and I thought being real should be a quality to be valued. Suddenly this guy shows up seemingly from out of nowhere and monopolizes ALL my physical attention and guys would say to him, "We've never seen her attached to one guy for this long before...." Well, he loves me for exactly who I am, and he even calls me beautiful.

I'm glad it worked out the way it did and about a year later I went from "Almost Aunt Amanda" to "Always Aunt Amanda." At the time I had two living parents and four living grandparents and Tom's parents were alive too. What a blessing. Grandma died less than a month later. It was a gorgeous day at the Oakland Temple where we were married and our reception at my grandparents' house was fabulous. I felt like a princess. Actually, I poured over the wedding album almost daily for the first year after we were married and Tom teased me, "You are continually staring at pictures of yourself."

And I'm thrilled for my niece that SHE gets to go be a missionary. I'll have to live through her a little bit. Tom and I also hope to serve as missionaries together when we are retired. That will be great. I hope we get to just take a trip to Chile sometime in the next couple of decades too so I can see some of these beautiful places.