I think we’re all familiar with cancer. Too familiar. I have yet to meet someone that wasn’t touched by cancer. My first experience was when my best friend, Becky, was diagnosed with leukemia while we were still in elementary school. I remember she couldn’t come out to play, how thin she got, how sick she was, the odd bruises, the pic line in her chest, her head with just a smattering of random hairs on it, and always her big smile and infectious laugh. We’d play with her wigs for hours over at her house. Once, when she was doing really well and seemingly healthy, her parents let her stay overnight at my house. We were so excited! She forgot her jammies, so I lent her a pair of mine. Becky had one really long hair on her head, surrounded by a bunch of short ones…we entertained ourselves by standing that hair up and watching it “dance” while she wobbled her head. I remember we laughed late in the night at her dancing hair and we talked about all the things we would do once she got better.

I’m not sure how long after our sleepover that Becky got really sick again; I was too young to really pay attention to the passing of time. One day my fifth grade teacher (who had Becky in her class the year prior) pulled me out into the hall. She told me, with big teary eyes that Becky had died earlier that morning. I must’ve had the blankest look on my face because she asked if I had heard her. I nodded my head, went back in the classroom and put my head down on my desk. It didn’t seem real.

A few days later was Becky’s funeral. I walked in with my mom, took one look at that casket and stopped dead in my tracks. I had already been to a few funerals already…great-grandparents who were very old. But way up in the front of the room was my best friend, in her favorite wig, dead. Silly, laughing Becky who was only a few months older than me was gone. My mom tried to move me but I couldn’t make my feet move forward. Becky’s mom came and asked if I wanted to go with her, and as much as I thought I wanted to, I couldn’t. I was too afraid. So my mom and Becky’s mom talked quietly a few moments and we left.

We got home and I got ready for bed. I opened my drawer with my jammies and saw the set Becky wore when she stayed over. I pushed them to the back of the drawer and never wore them again.

So I’m standing up to cancer for Becky. And for my grandpa who used to share his M&Ms with me when I was little, and died of throat cancer when I was only 16 (I could almost dedicate an entire blog just to him). For my great-grandmother I never got to meet who died of “woman’s cancer” (guessing either ovarian, uterine, or cervical cancer…my grandmother never specified when she told me). For my great-uncles, brothers, Richard and Micky; one who was a fabulous musician and one who taught me how to peel an orange. For our friend Kari’s mom, who was one of the funniest ladies I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, who passed from abdominal cancer. And for the countless others out there currently fighting.

Please help them fight. Click the button at the top of this post for more information on ways to reduce your risk and ways you can help fund research for treatments and cures.

This post started as a rant about the fight Justin and I had. But I realized that wasn’t appropriate to air that kind of laundry…at least not while he still reads my blog and has comments emailed to him. Suffice it to say it wasn’t pretty, complete with ugly words, and hurt feelings, and for what I think was the first time in nearly 10 years together, I retreated by myself to cool down. Usually I’m the one chasing Justin around the house, shouting like some crazed harpy.

But not this time. I was mad, I was wounded, and didn’t want it to get uglier than we had already allowed it to get, especially since the kids were right there.

I sat in our room working on laundry, watching something stupid on TV so that I could let my brain wander and sort out what was said, and what I was going to say once the kids were in bed, trying to formulate the best passive-aggressive remark to get my point across.

I finished up the laundry, put it away, and started running the water for the kids’ bath. Justin brought them up and, with very few words exchanged, we went to work scrubbing and rinsing them. I pulled Cooper out and got him dried off and into his jammies. I heard Justin doing the same for Gavin. I sat in the rocking chair to give Cooper his nightly cup of milk and snuggle, heart still hurting from the argument two hours before.

Instead of fidgeting around like usual, Cooper looked at me with those big slate-colored eyes of his, crawled up to put his head on my shoulder and nuzzled in my neck. We rocked for a good ten minutes, then I stood up and swayed to the lullabye music playing with Cooper while he kept cuddling and patting me, and stroking my arms, shoulders, and playing with my hair with his chubby little hands.

And I began crying. This little baby, not quite a year old, seemed to know I was hurting and took care of me the best way he knew how. God only knows how Cooper knew (actually, I think He had a lot to do with Cooper’s response to me). But I cried quietly, feeling the pain melt away, trying to not sob or sniff loudly lest I break the spell of my baby comforting his mother.

I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer be naked in front of Gavin.

I actually should’ve decided and acted on this about a year ago. I was very pregnant and Gavin was just 3 years old. Usually if I was the only one home with Gavin, I would wait until he took a nap to squeeze in a shower because I couldn’t quite trust him to stay put in front of the TV, particularly if I had to shave (which was a really lengthy process when trying to find your legs somewhere under a big ol’ belly). So on this particular day, he’s sleeping and I jump in the shower. I’m about half done and he comes in the bathroom. I just want to finish my shower with out worrying about what he’s getting into, so I ask him if he wants to come in the shower with me and open the shower door.
G: yucky! (he points just under my belly, towards my crotch)
I look down, but of course can only see this massive belly:

Me: what do you mean “yucky”, buddy?
G: poopie! (he points at my crotch again)
Me: what do you mean “poopie?!” (craning neck to see around my belly and to look on the shower floor to see if my water broke or if I was bleeding or if I lost control of my bowels. Nope.)
G: yucky poopie, mommy. need wipe. (continuing to point at my crotch, this time a little closer)
I look around the massive belly and see he is pointing at my pubic hair! He thinks the wet hair is poop! I start laughing so hard I slip and nearly fall in the shower, which gets me laughing harder. Not knowing what I’m laughing at, Gavin leaves the bathroom to go play trains.
That was a year ago. Since then I’ve been in front of Gavin in various states of undress and he’s not said anything. When nursing Cooper, he once asked what I was doing. I answered simply, “I’m feeding Cooper. Cooper is eating.” Content with that answer, Gavin went back playing. Periodically if he was paying attention to me and/or Cooper, he’d point out that “Cooper eatin’” anytime I was nursing him. But he never seemed to notice that my shirt was half-off, or if he was in our room while I was getting ready in the morning, he never said anything.
That all changed Monday morning. I had just gotten out of the shower and Gavin came in and was talking to me as I dried off. Out of nowhere, he points at my crotch.
G: whas dis?
Me: uh, hair.
G: (eyes me suspiciously, looks at the hair on my head, then back at my crotch) dats hair??
Me: yes. hair.
G: (pointing at my boob) whas dis, mommy? you have red on you belly?
Me: that’s mommy’s breast.
G: mommy’s bwest?
Me: yes. now go play find daddy and play with your toys. out. wrap towel around body and ushers Gavin out of the bathroom.

Any of you have any good stories of your child discovering your nakedness?

So I was going to put this cute post here about our DC Bloggers trip to the National Zoo but my dearest darlingest husband scooped me while I was at Target desperately searching for Teething Tablets! WTH? And because I’m lazy and can’t re-write the post I had in my head, you’ll just have to live with the link to Justin’s page (he has pics!).
I will add that I did enjoy our trip, even if Gavin ate more than a hippo and Cooper whined piteously because we were negligent and left his binky in the truck (and by “we” I mean “Justin”). It was neat to put faces to the names (and real names, in some cases). I enjoyed meeting the kids and husbands I had read about and even Justin enjoyed himself. I think he and Caramama’s hubby, Londo, got on famously and may be planning some sort of husband-of-mommy-bloggers date. And while we have like 80 other pictures than the ones posted at Justin’s site, since they contained these other bloggers and their families, we wanted to be sure to respect their privacy. So send a self-addressed-stamped envelope to me with $20 inside and I will relinquish copies of the pictures to you.

Oh, I will leave you with this: should you ever drive to the National Zoo and can’t get a spot in the lot, please please please for the love of Beaujolais, park south (downhill) from the Zoo. Somehow the National Zoo defies all laws of physics and seems to be uphill in all directions. Make it easy on yourself and walk downhill to your car after all that hiking. Your hips and calves will thank you (and me).

I mentioned briefly earlier that weird , like a lot of things in life, is relative.  I heard this from Mike Warnke, a Christian comedian, back when I was still a kid.  I took it to heart because it was so stinkin’ true.  I hope Mr. Warnke doesn’t mind that I roughly plagiarize paraphrase this because it’s still a pretty funny bit:

Weirdness is a relative concept.  What happens to you may not be weird to you, but it may be weird to me.

Think about it.  If normal things happen to normal people, that’s normal, right?  And if weird things happen to normal people, that’s weird, right?  So then if weird things happen to weird people, that would be normal, right?  Which means that if normal things happen to weird people, that would be weird.  Thus, weirdness is a relative concept.

So in light of that, it makes you wonder if the weird things that I encounter are actually weird or not, because I’m already a little strange, and I’m pretty sure those weird things don’t really happen to normal people, or at least they’d think they’re weird too…maybe even weirder than I think of them.  Hmmm….  something to think about, folks!