Remember when...?

It's Eleanor's 15 month birthday today. This is a pretty insignificant "month birthday" as far as "month birthdays" go. She is halfway between a year and 18 months, which I guess could mean something? But really, it does not. It seems to be standing out as something today, though. A year ago, Eleanor was 3 months old. My math skills are killing you right now, aren't they?!? But yes, the truth reveals that one year ago today, my daughter was 3 months old.

Oh, hi!

And one just for cuteness sake

She had figured out how to bat the toy that played "Twinkle, Twinkle" on her bouncy chair and was a wiggly, happy little baby, threatening to roll over and never stop. It was the last month we did the obligatory "month birthday" photos as it was the end of our happy, wiggly little baby. By the time she was 4 months old, her newly sprouted pubic hair had changed from peach fuzzies to long, dark strands, her acne had erupted across her forehead. She stopped wiggling and she stopped being happy.

Sometimes I mourn the loss of that baby, but rarely. I don't think of Eleanor as a newborn very often. When I think back to our time before the hospital, before diagnosis, I think of that sick, fat, unhappy child. The child that had nothing wrong, but everything was wrong. I remember almost every day from 3 - 6 months with pristine clarity, but ask me about her first months, her HEALTHY months, and I can't tell you much. She was lovely in the sense that she ate well and slept well enough (at least 3-4 hours at a time). She liked the stroller and the car seat and she was fairly receptive to new people holding her. It's all a bit mundane as I could be talking about any newborn.

I suppose I never think of Eleanor that way as I don't identify with her as healthy. I know her as "sick". It's not unreasonable to think that; she has spent majority of her life battling cancer, so it makes sense to think of her that way. I was blond for the first two years of my life, but have been dark brunette ever since. No one would ever say I was blond because I was born that way... and yet, I feel terrible for remembering my daughter only as "sick". She will grow and get better, and slowly the scale will tip and she will (again) have spent more time out of hospital than in. The tubes, catheters and lines will come out and she will walk and her peach fuzz will grow into long, raven locks.

And there's the rub.

Her peach fuzz is back. It's all over her pubic area and every day it gets darker. I know her testosterone levels are negligible, and that it is very unlikely to be anything, but it's like this whole, awful year is starting all over again. Every time I change her diaper or give her bath, I come face-to-face with fear, with sickness, with death, and I wonder how the fuck are we going to survive? How are we going to live through her getting sick again? What if the scales DON'T tip and our memories are only those of a sick baby?

I guess that's why we get moments like this:

I know I shouldn't complain or stress about the future. A lot of kids get sick or hurt and never get better. They never get to experience this no-mans-land time. Things just got worse for them. She is not sick right now, and I am obsessively capturing every movement on video, every smile in a picture. I even make "Voice Memos" of her babbling. I want to remember every second of the good times. We are very lucky in a lot of ways. Just really unlucky in one big one.

Here's to a better year, little bear.