Flynn attended his first playgroup today. At first he was a little shy.
But luckily the teacher gave him a little plastic rattle that fit right in his mouth, so he didn’t have to pay attention to other babies anymore, or other toys for that matter.
There was only one thing that temporarily distracted him from his rattle. Bubbles.
Just as I was bemoaning the lack of playgroup experiences in our Foreign Service future, I noticed this chart on the wall.
When I opted to receive chemo, I knew there would be side effects. Most likely, nausea and exhaustion. I was hoping, though, that somehow because I was only doing a single round of chemo that I’d be able to avoid anything too severe. At first I was right. But by the third day, I was feeling pretty sick. Alex said that now I understood how she felt with morning sickness. I said “leave me alone, I’m tired and I’ve only slept 14 hours today.”
Fortunately, the worst seems to be over now. This is particularly good news since Alex’s mom has returned to Illinois and Alex is back at work. That means that I’m alone with Flynn all day. And there’s one important lesson that I’ve learned from all this. That is that… sorry. Hold on.
Ok. I apologize. Flynn was trying to eat a shoe. Anyway, as I was saying. The thing that I’ve learned is that… One second.
Sorry for that. Flynn was pouring his milk all over the carpet. So the big lesson that I’m trying to take away is… I’ll be right back.
Flynn was attempting to hurl himself off a chair. How did he even get up there? So where was I? Oh right. The important lesson. That is that no matter… What in the world?
Ok, sorry again. Flynn was spitting up and trying to finger paint with it. One more try.
What I’ve learned from this is that no matter how badly I feel now, it could be worse. And that I should be thankful for the excellent prognosis I’ve received. I am lucky that I only have to go through one round of chemo and I’ll be able to move on with life.
Also, nine month olds are exhausting.
I happened to be at FSI yesterday, so I hung out in the back of the room for a few minutes of the 165th A-100 class’s Flag Day ceremony. Has it really been almost two years since I’ve been in their shoes? Wow.
I’ve updated Flag Day stories here with two 165th accounts — feel free to alert me to others I haven’t found.
To those of you who are thrilled with your assignment, congrats! It’ll be awesome, I’m sure. Please read no further.
For those of you who are less than thrilled, I promise you that your ultimate happiness will have little to do with how happy you were on Flag Day. Naturally, you bid based on city or language or job, but what impacts your experience most in the end are a bunch of things you have no way of knowing in advance: what your colleagues are like, how heavy your workload is, whether your family members mesh with other family members at post, and so on. Go in to the experience open-minded and you’ve got just as much of a shot of having a great tour as anyone else.
Plus, you’d be amazed how quickly two years flies by.
Before I had Flynn I resolved not to become one of those mothers whose life revolves around her baby. I would integrate my baby into my life rather than change my life to accommodate the baby.
Well, that was a lovely little idea before Flynn came along, but any new parent can tell you that having a baby changes things whether you want that or not. Before Flynn, for instance, I enjoyed spontaneous excursions to new places. Now any trip out of the house requires adequate baby formula, baby sunscreen, a hat, diapers, a changing pad, diaper wipes, a favorite toy, a car seat or baby carrier… you get the idea. Spontaneity is kind of impossible. And adventure? You never know when said baby is going to have a meltdown that makes returning home necessary, so you can’t ever venture too far away. (All this is way harder when living in a part of the world where you can’t make a pit stop to grab something you forgot, or find a clean public space to wait out a meltdown.)
Having Flynn has certainly changed my daily life – occasionally for the worse, but usually for the better. Still, just because he’s changed my life doesn’t mean he has to change me. I am Flynn’s mom, and I want to be a good mom, but I don’t want to be Flynn’s Mom, full stop. I don’t want this for the sake of my own sanity, but also because I think being more than Flynn’s Mom will make me be a better mom to Flynn.
But how can I make sure I’m maintaining my own non-mom identity? I don’t have an answer to this question, but about this time last year, three months pre-Flynn, I did hone in on one measuring stick: Facebook. I found myself setting some unofficial guidelines for my Facebook life as a new mom. Let’s see how I’ve done.
1. I would not change my profile picture to a picture of my baby. A picture of me and my son? Acceptable. But making my primary image one of him seems to cross some imaginary line into the realm of identity confusion, in my opinion. No judgment about other people who make this choice, but for me, no thanks. This rule has been easy to follow, although it should be noted that nearly every profile picture I’ve posted in the last nine months has included Flynn. But hey, at least I’m still there too.
2. I would not share every picture I took of my baby. You know those moms who have Facebook albums documenting baby’s every move? “Baby Makes a Tiny Smile” album has 1,232 shots. Well, that wouldn’t be me. And it hasn’t been at least in part because I simply don’t have enough time to take, never mind upload, thousands of pictures. But still, I do post a few more than I probably should. I can’t help myself. A baby in a blow-up duck? A baby snuggling up with a beagle? A baby engrossed in a laptop? (See above.) To me they’re all adorable and share-worthy; I’m his mom after all. Nevertheless, I’ve been able to rein myself in at about a dozen a month. Success?
3. I would not share any mom stories that I wouldn’t want others to share with me. Would I want to know about my ex-boss’s breastfeeding troubles? Absolutely not, so there’s no reason she needs to know about mine. This rule has been surprisingly easy to follow since I’ve never been much of an over-sharer anyway; still, I’m continually baffled about the decisions made by others. It starts before the baby is even born. I’m happy you’re having a kid, I really am, but I don’t need status updates from the delivery room. I don’t need to know exactly how dilated you are, random person I sat next to in a class junior year and somehow became Facebook friends with. A friend of a friend recently even shared a picture of her kid’s poop, asking for help diagnosing what was wrong with it. Moms and future Moms, take note: There’s no wiggle room on this one. Sharing photos of your kid’s poop is never acceptable Facebook behavior.
4. I would not brag about how wonderful and advanced my baby was. This one has been harder to follow, because I — like every mom – do of course think that my baby is so wonderful and so advanced, and I would love to tell everyone all about it. But in the grand scheme of things I realize that everyone starts kindergarten being able to roll over; at how many weeks he first did it really only matters to parents, and bragging about that just irritates and worries other parents whose babies rolled over a few weeks later. (The discrete brag is even worse. For instance, “Mom friends, please help! Is something wrong with my baby? She rolled over at three weeks! Is that too soon?”) I think I’ve been pretty good in this regard, except maybe bragging about the cuteness. It’s hard not to brag about the cuteness.
5. I would not allow my baby to dominate my updates. This has been another one that has been pretty difficult to follow. I only really have time for two things these days: work and baby. I can’t say a whole lot about my work publicly, so what does that leave? Baby. But it was and is important to me to have an identity beyond just my status as mom, so I try to balance my baby photo posts with interesting articles and social commentary. Occasionally, after noticing how much baby stuff is on my timeline, I’ve found myself trolling the web with the expressed purpose of finding a cool article to share. Yikes, I do not consider that a win.
There you have it – my foolproof plan to maintain my pre-baby identity and avoid totally annoying Facebook friends too. Because Facebook friends don’t want to be overwhelmed with baby information, right? Come to think of it, a recent article I shared about the benefits of sending American kids to foreign universities — an article I thought was quite fascinating — didn’t get a single comment or like. Yet a picture I posted of Flynn looking at himself in a mirror got 58 likes and 9 comments.
Maybe I’ve got it all wrong.
Flynn and Grandma Jeanne took a fast liking to one another, maybe because they’re the only two people left in the entire world who think those giant paper phone books are useful. Grandma Jeanne maintains they’re still the best way to look up numbers (despite the three computers and two smart phones at her disposal), and Flynn loves that they provide a seemingly infinite amount of paper for tearing. Luckily our hotel room came complete with four of them; we’re set for a while. Grandma Jeanne has also kept busy coaching Flynn’s “ba ba ba” into a “blah blah blah” and teaching him to wave like royalty, much to the chagrin of his parents. But hey, she’s letting him sleep in her room every night, so she can do what she wants.
You may recall that we were still sorting out what exactly I would do while Andy stayed in D.C. for chemo. Well, that’s been resolved — this week I started work at a temporary assignment at Main State. In fact, I’m in the same office where I worked about a year ago this time for a few months before Mr. Flynn came along. A lot of the same people are still there too. It’s been an easy transition.
I feel very lucky that both post and the Africa Bureau have been so understanding and accommodating about making this happen. They very well could have ordered me back on a plane to Benin pronto. In fact, they could have never let me come to D.C. with Andy for his tests in the first place. But they did, and I think that says a lot about recent efforts to make the State Department more family friendly.
It’s funny — today there was a post on the Sounding Board, the State Department’s virtual “suggestion box,” about the difficulty of the medevac process. Perhaps I’m jinxing things because we’re still in the middle of it, but so far we’ve found the process very transparent and everyone we’ve worked with understanding and accomodating. Is our experience unique?
Our biggest problem at the moment is that Flynn’s found a new favorite toy: my State Department ID. Can baby slobber and two tiny teeth demagnetize a State badge? I’ll let you know.
Andy was presented with three choices regarding his post-surgical cancer care. Every medical professional we’ve seen has made a point to mention that having choices is a good thing, because they wouldn’t give us measly know-nothing patients a say if we could make a bad call. Thanks for vote of confidence, medical community. But basically they’re trying to reassure us that in every scenario Andy will be okay; these choices really involve our mental health and lifestyle preferences.
Option 1: Do nothing. There’s an 80% chance that the surgery Andy had to remove the tumors was enough; the cancer will never come back. Of course he would have to get monitored on a regular basis to make sure, but even if the cancer returned, it’s a sort that’s slow growing enough that there’s no real risk. As long as he stuck to his surveillance schedule they would catch it with plenty of time and squash it away before it could do any harm. And anyone who knows my husband knows he would stick to his surveillance schedule. But would he worry and fret between check-ups? Anyone who knows my husband knows that, yes, he would do that too. Another problem: if the cancer came back, squashing it would require much more serious and debilitating drugs than what would be used now; see options 2 and 3.
Option 2: Radiation. Basically, he would go in every day for a few weeks and have cancer fighting rays zapped down on his abdomen. The point would be to kill any tiny cancer cells that had escaped but that were too small to be be detected by his CT scan (because no spreading was detected on his CT scan). This would reduce the odds of recurrence from 20% to less than 5%. Problem is, it would also probably make him horribly sick and more importantly, up his risk factor for colon cancer ever so slightly; his mom died from colon cancer.
Option 3: Chemo. A type of chemotherapy called carboplatin is a fairly new option for Andy’s type of cancer. It’s been used on other cancers for a long time so they know it doesn’t lead to any major long-term problems. Of course, it’s still chemotherapy so it’s not totally harmless and shouldn’t be administered unnecessarily, but it’s much more mild than the sort of chemos that would be used if a recurrence happened. Based on about 10 years of research, they’re thinking it has similar success rates as radiation, reducing the odds of recurrence to less than 5%. However, because it hasn’t been around too long it’s impossible to know this for sure. But it’s a lot easier on the body than radiation. You get one injection and then wait it out for three weeks or so. The vast majority of people experience only minor discomfort and keep working full-time.
So, what did Andy decide?
Drumroll please…
Andy wanted more peace of mind than surveillance alone could provide. To stay sane he needs to know a) he did everything he could to stave off recurrence, and b) recurrence is pretty darn unlikely. So that left him with radiation or chemo. Radiation is a perfectly good option for many, but he didn’t see the point in upping his risk, even ever so slightly, for another type of cancer to which he’s already genetically predisposed — especially when there’s another perfectly good option on the table. So that left chemo. Even after the chemo he’ll still need to get his blood tested for cancer markers quarterly and have annual CT scans in the event that he’s in the unlucky 5%, but that’s manageable enough that we will hopefully be able to return to Benin to finish out our tour. The State Department’s medical office is telling us that should be fine, but we’ll see what happens when it’s time for an official decision.
So, that’s that.
Andy is scheduled to start chemo on February 13. I guess I have to let him off the hook for Valentine’s Day this year, huh?
One tiny upside of this unexpected trip back to the U.S. is that Flynn has had the opportunity to spend some time in the U.S. Sure he lived stateside for his first two months, but that was like 3/4 of a lifetime ago. Ancient history to an eight month old. Truth be told, he’s adjusting just fine. He loves freeze dried fruit from Trader Joe’s. He can’t imagine anything more fun than riding the Metro. Except maybe watching construction workers out the window. Me, however, I’m still getting the hang of things.
We don’t encounter a lot of shopping carts in Benin, so sue me. But trust me, I can drape a mosquito net like a pro.
Air France flight from Cotonou to Paris.
Andy: I can’t wait for all the food we’ll be able to have when we get back to Washington.
Alex: Yeah, like good sushi.
Andy: And real pizza and burgers.
Alex: I can’t wait to go to Cafe Asia again. Oh, and brunch. I really want a good brunch.
Andy: I can’t wait to go to Ray’s Hell Burger and Five Guys and Outback and get McDonald’s for breakfast.
Alex: I’m going to make a pumpkin pie and get some good Mexican food and get free diet soda refills everywhere.
Andy: So that takes care of the first day. What are we going to eat on the second day?
That was the conversation we had when we were on our way back to Washington. After six months in Africa, we were feeling a little homesick. But now our bodies are starting to fight back. So we’re easing up. We actually went to the grocery store and bought some stuff to cook at home. Healthy stuff. Wow! We’re also realizing that we may very well be stuck here for a while, so there’s no need to stuff ourselves with so much deliciousness all at once. But come to think of it, the reason why we’ll be here for a while is because I will be starting chemotherapy soon. I don’t imagine chemotherapy will be very good for my appetite, so maybe I should place a Papa Johns order tonight after all…
Okay, sold.
Sitting in our hotel lobby eating our breakfast this morning, a woman approached us tentatively.
“Sorry to interrupt…” she began.
Oh great, we both thought. She’s going to tell us that we haven’t dressed Flynn warmly enough. Or that we really shouldn’t be letting him eat whatever it is he’s currently putting in his mouth. For all you non-parents out there, you would be amazed how much unsolicited advice comes along with bringing a baby in public. This is one of my least favorite things about being back in the U.S. Maybe the same thing happened in Benin too, but luckily I couldn’t understand what people were telling me so I just assumed they were saying he was cute.
But no, that’s not the direction this particular woman was going. “Do you have a blog…?” she continued.
“Why yes, yes we do.”
It turns out her husband is in the current A-100 class, and they poured through Foreign Service blogs, including ours, to know what to expect. This sort of thing has happened to us a number of times in the past few years, and each time we’re surprised to learn that anyone besides our parents is actually reading. So this blog does have a readership, albeit one specific to the sort of people who hang out at hotels close to the FSI shuttle. Still, it’s a readership nonetheless, and that makes what I’m about to tell you all the more shocking.
A few months ago my mom starting blogging on Open Salon — you know, the place where Julie of Julie & Julia fame blogged about her cooking adventures. Very quickly my mom built a circle of loyal followers, getting more views and comments than we could dream about. She very quickly outdid us, and now it seems she’s outdone even herself. She’s gone viral. A week ago my mom posted “25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore” and as of right now she’s received 47,000 page views.
47,000!
For a bit of perspective, let me point out than in all of 2011 our blog got 37,000 page views. Yes, your math is correct: that’s 10,000 less in a whole year than my mom got in one week.
We admit defeat.
But go read her posts! And tell your literary agent friends. 🙂
(Note: In the two hours since I originally posted this she’s already jumped up to 54,000 views. Almost 7,000 views in hours? Man.)
(And a day later? 100,000!)