Wacky Wednesday – Keeping It Real

Breast Cancer isn’t really very funny. Parenthood, however, I will admit can be really really funny. And I do try to laugh at myself as often as possible. When you combine That Girl, That Guy, and My Girls, you get a pretty Wacky life. When I was a child, probably when I was learning to read, one of my favorite books was “Wacky Wednesday” by Dr. Seuss. Since we constantly talk about how wacky my oldest is, my Wednesday posts will be sharing what I think are pretty Wacky stories, quotes, and silliness from our lives. Enjoy!

Just when I am starting to feel like someday I may have it all together, or at least as together as I ever had it in the Old Days, as That Little Girl likes to call our pre-cancer pre-That Baby lives, something comes along to let me know that in fact that is totally false. There have been really successful outings, even to New York for the day, but generally it has included four adults to the two kiddos. And as far as me personally, I seem to be stuck in a cycle of feeling normal-ish then getting knocked down a peg or two in energy and appearance to remind me this is just not over yet.

To mark the one year date of my diagnosis, That Family along with my parents went to my favorite thai restaurant. Before That Baby, when That Little Girl was a wee-terrible two (or so), we had been to this restaurant. It might suffice to say that we never took her back as way of explanation for that evening, but there were lots of tears, screaming, and disbelief since this was not her typical reaction. There was pretty much one of us outside with her at some point throughout the dinner. Not enjoyable for anyone. So it became a date night default and a take-out treat.

That Baby eats well. She definitely has her difficult moments, but she generally always eats something we put in front of her and enough of it to have a healthy meal. So I was feeling bold and like it was time to just go out and do things this particular day. Plus we had reinforcements aka my parents. Somehow, we got That Little Girl actually excited about going just by telling her how much I liked the place. Please note, this had been tried before and was always met with absolute resistance. ABSOLUTE. But she was really into it so it seemed like it would go well. And it did. Like ridiculously well.

That Baby ate all the steamed rice, chicken, and vegetables we could have imagined. That Little Girl and my dad split some Chicken Satay and she ate the peanuts from her pad thai, a smidgen of noodles, and veggies and rice from That Baby’s meal. My girls were happy, and that makes it so much easier for us to be happy and enjoy our meal.

That Guy and I were feeling pretty relaxed recently, and it was a quiet relaxed weekend day. We didn’t have any plans for dinner so we decided to go out for dinner after a day at home. And of course being a rainy want to be cozy feeling very tired day, I really wanted to go for Thai again since it was such an easy experience the previous time. We got there, we ordered (way too much) food that That Little Girl was requesting. We ordered That Baby another kid’s meal. Once their food came out, there was literally not any room left on the table. And we had to push everything to one end so That Baby was not able to throw rice and steamed vegetables and chicken all around. So there we were claustrophobic but feeling pretty smug. I even said, “It is just so nice to be able to do this.” And I knocked on the wood table damnit!

Then it all went downhill. That Little Girl broke her momentum with a trip to the bathroom just as the adult appetizer arrived. That Baby decided to eat the exact opposite of what she ate the other time. Since we were playing zone dinner defense, That Guy was taken off guard, but handled it well. Meanwhile, I was trying to coerce That Little Girl to sit up and eat instead of laying down to nap after about half a dozen tiny bites of the single preschooler smorgasbord. She lay her little body in the booth just as our food arrived. It took only one look over at That Guy for our eyes to meet and I had to giggle and look at the ridiculous amount of food (enough leftover for an entire second dinner for all of us) and confirm, “So we aren’t doing this again, huh?”. That Guy was now balancing a rutching That Baby and trying to eat his meal while I coerced That Little Girl to just eat one bit of her “pasta”, and he just slowly shook his head no with a smirk.

So try as we might, apparently we can’t manage a dinner out “outside the box” as a family of four. And if that isn’t enough to make me feel a little less than capable, I am battling all sorts of superficial issues of my own. I just can’t get use to this new non-wig short hair cut. I have no idea what I am doing with it and I feel like a Q-tip about 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time I forget I have hair all together after not thinking anything of it having had none for so long. My medicines have changed recently leaving all sorts of skin things happen. And it hasn’t been all pretty.

One morning, That Little Girl crawled into bed to snuggle after she woke up. I mean, who doesn’t love that. It buys me a few extra minutes of rest and she won’t snuggle forever. She looked at me and pointed to my face and told me I had a line riiiiiight there. I told her it was from a pillow crease making a mark on my face. Then I went about my morning getting up to get her breakfast while I hopped in the shower. When I got out of the shower I realized that the line she was talking about was not a pillow crease. As a matter of fact there was a very straight line on my face. right across my forehead. That wrinkle I think we all get right? So that was super.

So that’s how things are here! Big family nights out that disintegrate into delicious food no one gets to enjoy amidst the chaos, skin breakouts from the hormones and anti-hormones and all these changes all the time, and a straight line wrinkle my daughter is pointing out. Just in case anyone thinks we are living the glamorous life, felt I had to keep it honest.