change

After the second chemo treatment Andy's hair started falling out.  Lots of other cancer survivor friends gave us advice to just shave it off right away.  The girls couldn't wait.  It's funny how something that for Andy and me was wrought with emotion (we were trying to balance the unbelievable fact that Andy is losing his hair because he's doing chemo, with embracing the medicine that can make him better) was new and interesting for the girls.  

We took their lead and had some fun with it. It didn't take long before it all came out, his head is pretty pale and shiny now and his beard is nonexistent.  The girls like to pat his soft head.  I like to wonder what his hair will look like when it grows back in.  Hopefully thick and dark like it was before, but we'll take it any way.

Iris scurried around and pick up a few fallen locks.  I found them later in a ziplock tucked into her bunk.  She's a sentimental protector, that girl.  It's all so hard on them but they are so loved and cared for too.

And so what better time than in the middle of cancer chaos to do a room make over for the girls?   Actually we thought long and hard about it, but the girls had been ready for months.  Up until now, they had been (so sweetly) sleeping together in a queen bed, but had been voicing their eagerness for their own space and dreaming of bunk beds.   I figured if we were going to go for it we might as well paint over the nursery yellow that had gone up before Iris was born.  In truth, I shuttered to think of how they'd agree on a color but within two minutes at the paint store (I'm not kidding) they agreed on Rhapsody Lilac.  So there it is. 

We couldn't have done this without so much help (thanks Nonnie and Mike and Kelly for rocking the painting and Uncle Chuck for bunk bed transport).  

The girls are settled in and loving the space.  Iris was able to use a corner to recreate a little home/nursery for her boys and Mae was able to fill her shelf with "invention stuff".  And, for the first time in eight years we are no longer lying next to a child as they drift off to sleep and as much as I loved (o.k. and sometimes hated) that time, we were all ready.  And I'm proud of them that despite the hardships right now, they tackled this.  They showed themselves that change can be o.k.  And they showed me too.