Wordless Wednesday: The Corn Maze

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Wearing pink.

The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K was this past Saturday.

I was sick with a cold. And a cough. And tired, too. To add to the fun, that very morning, I finally got AF, after a 6 week non-ovulatory cycle.

(Meh.)

O was sick, too. Fever, this time. Poor kid was grumpy and fussy and calling for me most of the morning before we left.

But it was a gorgeous out, and we said we were going to do it. So D and I packed up and headed to Boston.

The races I’ve done before now were all relatively small – about 200-400 runners in each race. So when I got my bib number #2333, I knew this would be a little different.

Thousands were there. Literally TONS of people.

And I found myself really emotional as I surveyed the women with their pink survivor shirts.

Hoping that in a few years, one of those women would be my friend S.

And so D and I lined up at the start, at the 10 minute per mile pace.

And everywhere I looked, there were women with cards attached that said “running in honor of XXX.”

The first mile was the easiest for me – I had just taken a couple hits off my inhaler, so I breathed easily.

The racecourse turned us around early on so that we were running back towards the starting line, where the walkers were just starting out.

And as I ran and saw all the pink shirts of survivors. And all the other people who came in support of women with cancer…

I admit it. I couldn’t help it – I cried.

It was an odd sensation for me – the thrill of a good beginning to a run, my favorite running song (“Lazy Eye” by the Silversun Pickups – AWESOME song) on my iPod; mixed with the deep fear for my friend S’s life.

I nearly choked on all the emotion.

But truly – it was the best part of the race for me.

(I finished the race at :32.48, so it certainly wasn’t my best time.)

But I want to do it again next year.

I want to raise MORE money next time. I want to run in support of S, to do SOMETHING.

I want to run faster and harder next time. And finish next year under 30 minutes.

And I really, REALLY want her to be there next year.

Wearing a pink shirt.

Not so favorite part.

(Skipping Wordless Wednesday for a fruitless vent. Feel free to click away.)

I hate sick.

I hate that O has sleep issues when he gets sick.

I’m tired of being so tired that *I* get sick when he is sick.

I’m tired of feeling like I can’t win – if I do the method of letting him figure it out for himself, he’s up for hours overnight.

Then he gets sleep deprived.

Which totally ramps up the tantrums. And, you know, his SLEEP patterns too, because when he’s overtired he sleeps even LESS. Oh yes, and let’s not forget about the recent night terrors he’s been having. (Which, as it turns out? Is amplified due to sleep deprivation. Sweet.)

I’m tired of feeling like people look at me like I’m a shit mother because I don’t sleep train my kid. Which is stupid. O is as sleep trained as I can get him. He KNOWS how to put himself to sleep. He’s DONE IT.

He just isn’t. Not right now.

I’m tired of being worried about how something will affect his sleep. Transitions. Teeth. Food intake. A runny nose.

I’m tired of running on almost empty.

I’m tired of the insomnia when he DOES sleep. Because I’m wondering when he might wake up and wake ME up.

I’m just tired of it all.

What? You mean I should blog about my KID?

I’m still vascillating between utter fear and mild panic about my friend S’s situation. I don’t like what I’m reading about metastatic breast cancer. I don’t like the odds. Not at all.

But there’s not much else I can say right now. I’m terrified. I think of her all the time. I hope hope HOPE for her.

But mostly I’m just scared.

So shall we move on?

Because if you haven’t noticed, this blog is about my kid, too.

And O is doing things that are AWESOME right now.

(Well, mostly awesome, anyway.)

In the Not Awesome category is the not sleeping. That part isn’t awesome. Kid is so obsessed with buttons that we had to take down his crib aquarium this weekend. Because he’d be up for TWO HOURS each night playing.

His latest excuse – because truly, my kid is one to use ANYTHING as an excuse NOT to sleep – is that he’s cutting molars. And now has a cold.

So that part is not so cute. We did have a full night of sleep last night, all of us, but I expect a couple more sleepless nights before this is all resolved.

Then we’ll move onto the next excuse, I’m sure.

But the rest of the stuff he does? Awesome.

For example.

O is now starting to realize that J and I are a package deal. If J’s not home, or out of the room, O will walk around LOOKING for him, saying “dada. Dada. DADA!”

I was beginning to think that I was going to be deleted from his favorites file, but J told me that when I was gone on Saturday, he did the same thing. Except the whole time he said “Mama. Mommy!”

And. This weekend, at a local farm’s corn maze (which was situated close to a small airport), he discovered AIRPLANES.

“Ky!” he’d say, stopping, looking up, and pointing. “PAIN!”

And we’d agree that yes, planes fly in the sky.

And they’d disappear. To which he’d say hopefully, “mo-ah?”

And we’d assure him that there would be more planes, he’d just have to wait a bit.

Rinse, repeat.

But he had a great time walking through the maze. He’d just pick a direction and traipse off, stopping to grab a rock (“wock!”) and throw it in the direction he was walking. We walked for more than an hour this way – him throwing rocks, picking them up again, and throwing them again.

Pausing to watch the “pains in the ky,” of course.

He’s also gotten to the point where he’s actually begun to dictate what it is he wants to eat. Usually he asks for cheese. “deez!”

But J bought strawberries this weekend, and that’s ALL O wanted to eat. “Ber!”

And when he’s done with his snack, he tries to put everything on the counter to help “clean up.” We can give him a damp paper towel, and he’ll mop his booster seat tray for us. Wipe his hands and face.

He chatters non-stop. From the moment he wakes up in the morning until he goes to sleep at night, he’s talking, talking TALKING. He talks to his Bear. He talks to people in the stores. “Hi. Hi. HI!” he’ll yell at someone until they stop what they’re doing, turn to him, and say “hi there!” It’s cute. But just a little embarrassing.

And really. It truly boggles my mind that we have a little PERSON in our house. One that wants to help us clean or cook. Who has opinions on what food he prefers to eat.

Who knows that planes fly in the sky.

And that you say “hi” to people if you want them to pay attention to you.

There are moments where I stop and think “this is going WAY too quickly for me.” I just want to stop time. Slow it down. Live in the moment FOREVER.

That’s what I love most about being a mom. O forces me to be IN the moment. To really force myself NOT to be thinking about the myriad things I could be doing. To see the world from HIS vantage point – as one big adventure.

It really is my favorite part of being his mom.

She kicks ass.

I got to see S yesterday.

J had made a moroccan lentil soup (yes, J made it. My husband is a fantastic cook, among other things. Another post for another day!) the other night, and we froze it.

So yesterday I took some time and drove it down to her house. One of her friends had set up a cooler near the back of the house so that we could leave food for her, so I assumed I would just leave the food and head back.

But she saw my car, and she came out, calling my name, and asking “what the hell are you DOING here?”

And we hugged, and then chatted.

She wants to FIGHT it. The doctor who told her that there was nothing they could do right now, that they would save the chemo and surgery for later, when her insides were peppered with tumors? She told me she wanted to PUNCH the woman. Because all she heard was “studies” and “statistics.”

The doctor didn’t once consider her as a person, she said. And she doesn’t want to walk down a path of protocols for this type of person. She wants a doctor who believes in her. That she can BEAT it.

So she’s going for more opinions. The way it seems right now is that she’s choosing between being really aggressive and potentially beating it, versus accepting that her cancer is chronic and likely terminal.

She keeps thinking that SOMEONE needs to beat the odds. People do it every day. Why NOT her?

And she said, “I have no room in my life for chronic cancer. I have a family to raise.”

I came away heartened. And so very inspired by her.

And I TOLD her that I believe in her. And I will continue believing in her.

And I will tell her continuously that she can do this. Because she feeds off hope, and she DESERVES to hope. She’s got too much to live for.

And if anyone can beat this, my friend S can.

Guilty.

I’ve barely been able to breathe since I read the update email about my friend S.

I’m terrified for her.

I can’t believe that we’re not too young to be touched by this sort of thing.

I’m so, so sad for her husband and little girls.

I selfishly don’t want to lose someone I love.

But mostly, I feel guilty.

Because she’s SO important to me.

But in the past year or so, we’ve drifted apart. For no reason, really. We used to live in the same house with them, used to have dinners and parties and watch football and baseball and go camping together.

But now we’re both working moms, and we live an hour apart. And it’s so hard to keep up, and make plans. And now that we need to keep some semblance of a schedule with O’s naps, and she has two kids in the same situation, we can only snatch time in a couple of hour blocks here and there.

And over the past month – before her husband called to tell us the news – I have thought about her SO MANY TIMES. But have never called because, you know, it’s always the wrong time. On my way home from work right smack in the middle of dinnertime. And it didn’t REALLY matter, because we would see them Columbus Day weekend, when we make our annual trip with them and another couple to New Hampshire.

Always, ALWAYS, my friends have been important enough to me that I spend TIME on keeping in touch. And I can make every excuse in the world on how hard it is to keep this up with a child, yada yada.

Truthfully, I always thought that we had TIME to catch up. That it wasn’t awful that we went a couple of months without talking; we could pick right up where we left off.

Because we still had years together. Where we’d go on camping trips when our kids were old enough to ride their bikes down to the pond to fish. And we could sit by the fire with our beer and have great conversation.

But she’s on borrowed time. I have no idea how much time we have together. And I’m sure all her other friends and family are thinking the same thing, too.

So why does it take news like THIS for me to remind myself that my friends are this important?

Terminal fucking cancer. And I want to show her somehow just how much she means to me. Is it for ME, or for her? I don’t know.

All I know is that I feel helpless, and I want to DO something. Anything. To help.

So next weekend I’m running the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with my good friend D (who has graciously agreed to run a freaking 5k with me when she’s in town for a visit. Seriously, how awesome is SHE?). I’ve pledged to raise money for research (and if you interested in donating email me at serenitynowinfertile at gmail dot com and I can direct you to my site).

We made them one of our favorite soup recipes yesterday and froze it, and I’ll drive it down to their house today.

Feels like such stupid piddly little things, but it’s not nothing, I suppose.

I think it’s going to take me longer to get over the guilt of not being a better friend before now, that’s all.

Wordless Wednesday: Vacation Fun.

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Impotent.

I was going to tell you about our vacation last week. How well O did with his grandparents. How rested and awesome I feel.

But I just got an email this morning with an update.

My girlfriend S is dying.

Her cancer has spread. Not just the breast. It’s moved to her liver. And changed – not the same cancer as the tumor in her breast.

The doctors have told her that it’s “chronic” now and likely incurable. That no matter what course of treatment she does, the cancer will be there, in her body.

The goal now is to prolong her life as much as possible with other courses of treatment. Hormone therapy to shrink the tumors and keep them from recurring.

To keep the cancer at bay as long as possible.

They’re not talking about survival rates anymore. Now it’s survival TIME.

I don’t know what to do. How to process. How to help her. What to say. What to think. What to do.

Five years ago.

… I married my best friend.

Hard to believe it’s only been 5 years.

I can’t imagine my life without him.

Happy Anniversary, babe.

Here’s to many, many more.

Aw shit.

I have a good friend S. She’s awesome. She needed IVF to conceive her second daughter, and though she didn’t always say the right thing when we were struggling, she kept calling me. And checking in. And telling me that I was going to be a parent someday.

He husband called tonight. And told us that last week she found a lump in her breast.

And that they just found out that it is cancer.

And she will not only have a lumpectomy, but perhaps a mastectomy.

And she starts chemotherapy this month.

I’m absolutely gutted. For them, for her two young daughters, for the babies she wanted to have.

And now won’t, since chemo will fry what’s left of her eggs.

And I’m scared for them. For the journey she’s about to embark upon.

Please keep them in your thoughts.