snuffles and chuffles and drips

dear cookie face,

finally today you were feeling better. you had an awful cold this weekend, all snuffles and chuffles and drips and sploofs. lots of drool-soaked shirts to be changed, snot eruptions to be wiped, juicy sneezes to endure. on sunday, your face wouldn't stop leaking. even your eyes. poor little guy.

you are usually pretty easygoing, but this cold got the best of you. all weekend you clung to me like a little monkey. i could entertain you for short periods, but after a couple of minutes of a novel activity you would start to whine. we'd move on to whichever next thing mommy could think up and muster the energy to do.

we went on a lot of walks. long ones. you fussed some and slept some. you did the best in your baby bjorn, rocking against my body as we walked and walked. in the baby bjorn you mostly slept.

on sunday night you were too full of snot to be able to sleep in your crib. first you cried and then you screamed for me, so i put your car seat in the bedroom and strapped you in to sleep. you still woke up crying every hour, but by 2am i finally finished what i needed to do for work for monday and was able to go to bed. i brought you into the bed to sleep leaning up against me the way you used to when you were just a teeny sprout. you were able to nurse more often that way, which you needed, and you slept well until the morning with your cheek against my belly and my arms wrapped around you.

yesterday i stayed home from work with you. you were too sick for daycare, and daddy was on his way home from a job in l.a., so there was no other option. we don't have babysitters or sick care lined up for you yet. even if daddy had been home, though, i would have stayed with you. you needed your soft mama, and i was glad be that comfort for you.

last night daddy came home just in time for your walk. you couldn't stop looking at him when he first got home--you were so glad to see him. we walked all the way to fifth street and back while you napped in your baby bjorn. after dinner and your bath you were still feeling pretty rotten, so later you slept against me in the big bed, again.

today you woke up fussy, but once you had your pears and cereal for breakfast you were on the mend. i went to work. daddy took you to daycare. our rhythm returned.

when you were at your most miserable, i kept thinking: welcome to the world. this is part of it. sickness. suffering.

my little cookie face. this is life, and we are in it together.

important!

dear sweet potato,

sometimes it's hard to know what's important and what's not important, so i thought i'd share some things i've learned during my 40 years on earth:

ONE

important!: love yourself. everything else starts here.

not important: self-consciousness about what self-love means. if you don't already love yourself--and know it--i'm sorry. i've let you down.

TWO

important!: eat for health. it's much easier to maintain good health than to reclaim your health, and healthy food tastes good, too. (learn to cook.)

not important: being the odd man out when everyone else is eating deep fried food or sugary food or over-processed food...

THREE

important!: use your body. walk when you can. find a vigorous form of exercise you enjoy and do it regularly.

not important: how you exercise. run, do martial arts, play team sports, dance...

FOUR

important! be true to yourself

not important: "friends" who don't support you. ditch the fake friends and seek out the ones who enrich your life.

FIVE

important!: recognize that life is change, that everything is impermanent. appreciate the people and things you love, fresh air, clean water, trees, animals, blue skies.

not important: the mystery of life. no one knows why and no one will ever know why (despite what they tell you).

SIX

important!: express yourself. let your love be known. love drives all good in the world.

not important: feeling foolish. you'll get over it.

SEVEN

important!: your mind can be your friend or your enemy. make friends with it through meditation.

not important: meditation is boring. you can't sit still. you'll do it later. that's your enemy mind talking.

EIGHT

important!: believe it is possible. whatever it is that matters to you, no matter how long the odds or how bleak the landscape, believe it is possible. then act.

not important: being dismissed as a dreamer. dreamers invent the world.

a brief history of you, part 1

dear little bear,

long before you were born, daddy and i started talking about you.

should we have a baby? one of us said.

yes, let's have a baby. the other one said.

okay, it didn't happen just exactly like that, but that's the gist of it. i think i was the one who started it. i knew at least seven years before you were born that i wanted to be a mom, but it wasn't until a couple of years later that i felt really ready.

i don't know why it was so hard to get pregnant. we tried and tried. we went to specialists. it was an odyssey. i was constantly peeing on sticks--ovulation tests, pregnancy tests. no matter how well we timed things, the pregnancy tests always showed one line only. when almost four years had passed and still no baby, daddy and i talked about adopting. but daddy wanted to try a little bit longer.

one day i felt like i might be pregnant. at first i didn't trust the feeling, but by the time i got home from work i was pretty sure. it's hard to put the reasons into words. i took a pregnancy test that night and both lines showed up right away, good and strong. i went right in to the bedroom to tell daddy. he was lying in bed reading. he didn't seem surprised, just kept on reading his book. i started thinking about you and how our lives were going to change.

the first time i saw you you were just a flickering heartbeat. you were six weeks into your journey into this world. seeing your little heart beating there inside me, i felt protective of you. i was learning what it meant to be your mom. i would be your shelter.

the second time i saw you was at your eleven week ultrasound. even then you were already beautiful. you were busy busy busy, twisting and turning inside me. i took home some pictures of you and i looked at them every night before i went to bed, admiring you and wondering what you would be like.

it was eight weeks later that we found out daddy had cancer. his diagnosis was like a drive by shooting. when a 37 year old's butt bleeds, you expect hemorrhoids, not cancer.

i remember the last few minutes of our normal, pre-cancer life. i was in the waiting room while daddy was having his colonoscopy. i was reading crib reviews, trying to figure out what kind of crib to get you. i wanted one that was very safe and easy to get you in and out of and modern looking and not too expensive. the test was over very quickly and the nurse came to get me. the doctor came in and told daddy and me that he had a growth and would have to have an operation. he didn't say "cancer," but his tone was serious and he told us to expect the biopsy results in a few days. the very next day while i was at work, he called to tell daddy he had cancer.

in one instant the whole future changed from something stable and predictable to murky and tumultuous. or so it seemed. but of course, what really happened was that one fantasy was replaced with another fantasy. that's all the future is: fantasy. either fantasy or a comlete blank, and a complete blank is something we just can't live with.

daddy believes you came to us for a reason. he believes that your arrival right around his diagnosis, after we waited for you for so long, was not an accident. before you were born, during some of our hardest times, he used to say that you were going to come and cheer us up.

you have cheered us up. cheered us up to spectacular heights. what a view! daddy was so right.

snapshot

the little "o" you used to make with your newborn mouth, especially when you were tired

you are getting sleepy

dear funny boy,

after a full day of daycare, a bear gets sleepy. often at night you are so tired you can't wait for me to put you to bed.

most of the time i pick you up around 4:30 so you have time for a nap, a walk, dinner in your high chair, and a bath. you really want to be in bed by 7:00 and don't like it when i keep you up later than that. there have been many times that you would have walked yourself right upstairs and climbed into your crib if you were able.

at the same time, if we skip any steps in the routine, that seems to throw you. so instead of skipping steps, i just shorten them: we go for a walk just around the block instead of for half an hour, you eat just half a jar of carrots instead of a whole one, i dip you in the warm bathwater for a minute or two instead of soaping you up and letting you play.

last night you had a great sleep. you slept all the way through the night for the second night in a row, and the third time ever. you went to bed at 7:00, and when you woke up 11 hours later you had a nice long drink of warm breast milk. you were happy. i was happy.

tonight you went to sleep easily. you nursed a little bit after your bath, then decided you'd had enough. i put you in your crib with your eyes very open, turned on your turtle light, and left the room. you talked to yourself for a few minutes and then not a peep.

simple: soothe, sleep.

worth it

dear munchkin pants,

i just spent the last two hours glazed over in front of the t.v. trying to pretend that i could avoid my responsibilities. eventually, though, i had to lumber into the kitchen to do a load of wash, scrub your bottles for loading into the dishwasher, and clean the accessories i need to pump breast milk for you, which i am doing right now as you sleep.

today daddy and i saw dr. b. we got to her office just in time for daddy's 10:30 appointment, and then we waited until almost noon to see her. i actually fell asleep with my head on the exam table while we waited, and groggily believed i was in your room (as i so often am, half asleep, in the middle of the night), and that the sound of daddy's book pages rustling was the sound of your window blinds rippling in the wind. waking up in the doctors' office was a bit of a shock.

everything dr. b. told us should be considered good news. she confirmed that daddy's most recent pet scan showed no signs of cancer, and said that neither she nor any of the other members of the tumor board that met to discuss daddy's case could explain this fact. since daddy only had two folfox treatments and three of the cetuximab, she hypothesized that daddy might just be exquisitely sensitive to the cetuximab. "exquisitely" was her word, I am just repeating.

the next step, dr. b. said, is surgery. daddy will have his ostomy reversed by dr. v., and at the same time dr. w. will do an exploratory surgery on daddy's liver. if he finds any cancer there, he can remove it right then as long as it is not extensive. she said that the surgery would probably start out laparoscopic, but could be switched to a bigger incision if their findings indicate a need. so that part is kind of scary. we asked for a consultation with dr. w. so we can get our questions answered. but we will probably have a surgery date scheduled within the week.

one thing i should emphasize is that dr. b. told us that daddy is in the best possible place he could be, in terms of his current status. two months ago he had a large portal vein thrombosis in his liver and a pet/ct scan showing cancer spread to his liver and a possible recurrence in the pelvis. his more recent pet/ct scan shows no portal vein thrombosis and no cancer. and daddy is feeling really good. so there are lots of reasons to feel positive.

truth be told, though, tonight i feel kind of sad. daddy and i have had a month of relative normalcy and it's hard to go back to thinking of him as a cancer patient. i am worrying already about how i will be able to do more around the house while he recovers. he won't be able to lift you for a while after the surgery, so i'll need to take you to and from daycare, bathe and diaper you, etc. of course most of this i do already anyway, but daddy will need extra help, too. just thinking about that makes me tired.

after the doctor today i had to work. i worked from home and picked you up from daycare about an hour later than usual. you were so tired you napped almost until bedtime, then you fussed through your carrots and your bath (which i ended after about 3 minutes). while i put on your pajamas, you cried harder than i've heard you cry in a long time. i felt bad. but then you nursed and went to sleep easily, and in the morning you'll be chipper as ever.

i love going into your room in the morning and seeing you smile at me from your crib. it makes getting up worth it.

fate or luck or god or karma

dear little bear,

it wasn't long ago that you were purely hypothetical. now you are six months old. there is so much i want to remember about this time, so much i want to tell you. i've decided to just start writing it down.

i'd like to start at the beginning, but i don't know what counts as the beginning. i'll just start with today and eventually we’ll get to it all, i'm sure.

a little story i heard from big miss d when i picked you up from daycare tonight: you were sucking away on your binky earlier in the day, very happy, when another baby decided he wanted it and pulled it out of your mouth. instead of complaining, you just grabbed your binky right back, popped it into your mouth for a minute, and then held it up and circled your wrist around as if to say, "see, i have it now." your personality is starting to reveal itself, and you already have a good sense of humor.

tomorrow after we drop you off at daycare, daddy and i are going to see daddy's oncologist. for you it will be like any other day, but for us it will change things in some way. we will hear about some plan for the future, something that the doctors think is the best course of action for keeping daddy alive. not long ago we thought it would be liver surgery, but daddy's last pet/ct scan threw all that into question. now it could be that they want to go straight to chemo, or maybe first they'll do his ostomy takedown. (when you're old enough to read this, i'll explain about that.)

whatever it is, it will probably not be nothing. it will be one more thing we have to adjust to. daddy and i have both gotten pretty good at adjusting to whatever it is that the doctors tell us. we’ve had a lot of practice these last 11 months since the doctors told us daddy had colorectal cancer. the hardest part for me is not speculating: will my little bear grow up with his dad, or without his dad? if you grow up with your dad, will you always be as great together as you are now? if you grow up without your dad, will i be able to give you everything you need?

i hope you know i am not talking about material things. but no matter how many other people love you, and no matter how much, there is no substitute for a father who loves you. and your daddy really loves you. he is gentle with you. he plays guitar for you and sings to you and changes your diaper and gives you baths. he takes you for walks in your stroller so you can nap. he feeds you your bottle and spoons mushy baby food into your mouth and burps you and soothes you when you cry.

that is the love you deserve, and that is the father you deserve, and i hope that fate or luck or god or karma (or whatever you want to call the force that moves the world) gives it to you for keeps.