Today Greta wore her light up shoes.  She struts around like she owns the town.  Since the shoes light up her path, it does seem like she owns the town. She came with me to a follow-up appointment with Dr. Razzle: we pushed elevator buttons, the nurses gave her cookies, we saw the “shiss” (fish) tank, and she melted hearts.  Mine included.  Dr. Razzle...

My girls are four years and two weeks apart. When I was pregnant with Greta, I wondered what kind of a relationship they would have with each other during their childhood years.  There is so much that plays into it: age, personality, birth order. I have two little sisters; I love my sisters.  When we were little, I was the dictator; treating Chief Sister with my...

In these last moments of precious nap time, I am crossing off my to-do list.  One item on the list is “Get Greta’s bunny face on film.” Greta, like many seventeen-month-olds, does animal sounds.  She has an impressive array and it is one of our best distraction techniques when we need her to cooperate.  She’ll chirp along and tell us the...

Dr. Wonderful asks, as he does at every appointment, “So Jen, have you noticed any changes after the last week or so?” “Well, I had some tingling after the last chemo for the first time.  That was cool.”  He nods.  “And I think it is a bit smaller, but I have a hard time assessing.  The biggest thing that I did was to send out a request...

Today was a fun day.  I had no doctor’s appointments, I ignored my cancer-specific to-do lists and tasks; today I was Regular Mommy.  We played.  The house was disaster by six o’clock.  It was a great day. We went to the local library.  Unfortunately, I am one of those people who doesn’t fully take advantage of the “free” element of the...

It’s Mother’s Day.  Maren has already delivered a bowl of blueberries to me in bed.  Just blueberries.  I love that girl.  Now, she is downstairs crafting, and Brad has gently suggested I wait for his, “All clear” signal before venturing down myself.  Maren takes her art, especially Present Art, very seriously.  I can hear Greta babbling...