The Kids

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Okay I am laughing right now at these pictures because my kids are such rag muffins! I have absolutely no energy to get them ready or even bathe them. McKay does it and I usually muster up the energy to do it on Sunday before church but that's about it. Good thing they're cute no matter what. I did trim Cash's hair a tiny bit so now he just has a mullet and not long bangs AND a mullet. Whatever.

Father's Day was Sunday. McKay is the best dad. I wish I could just somehow arrange for him to have a full day of golfing, friends, his favorite food and total relaxation, but that wasn't possible this year and I tried my best to make it a normal Father's Day but I was so tired by the end I pretty much wanted to die hahahaha. Jax made the cake. He was so cute. He has learned all about patterns this year at school so I thought this would be an easy cake for him to put together and he did awesome. It's been so sunny and so the boys have played outside a lot. It's the perfect time of year for chemo to start because I can either just sit in the driveway and watch them play or on days that I am really tired (like today) they can go to grandma's pool and swim- which isn't much different than what they would regularly be doing. I just want to make everything as normal as possible.

At the beginning of all this I decided that I wasn't going to use the word "cancer" around the boys. I just felt like they were too young, and that Jax would hear stuff from other kids or adults that would scare him. Without really thinking about it, I made a pretty sudden, firm decision that we were not going to talk about it with the kids. Well, as time has gone on I started to feel like everything that's been going on needed a little more explanation than "the doctors had to take something out of mom's body." Jax is so smart and I really think he could sense that there was more going on than we were letting on. There is this girl I follow on Instagram who is in remission- but went through chemo and everything while her kids were little and cute like mine- so I sent her a quick message asking her how she explained everything. She said to use the word "cancer" and tell the kids they couldn't get it. After reading that advice I was still a little weary of it. I decided to just kind of go with the flow and try to pay attention to what I thought would be best for my kids. McKay and I talked about it and both felt open-minded about whatever we were prompted to do, but neither of us felt adamant about having "the conversation" at any given time.

Well, the other night McKay was putting Cash to bed and Jax and Jonah were downstairs with me on the couch. Jax started taking about the thing that the doctors had to "take out of my body" and I just nodded and said something like yep, they had to take it out. And he goes "what was it?" I didn't panic, but I said a silent prayer to Heavenly Father asking for help. I think I said something like What? to buy myself a couple more seconds, but Jax insistently responded, "what did the doctors have to take out?" I said, have you ever heard mommy say the word 'cancer?' And he nodded. It was kind of like a relief. I think that the word had been going in and out of his brain for a while and of course he had to have heard us use it taking to each other or other people. Anyways, I said something like, Jax, do you know how when you get the flu, sometimes you get a runny nose or a bad cough, or you can even throw up? And he said, "ya." And I said, well, did you know that if we didn't sometimes ask for the doctors help it would be really hard to get better and people have even died from the flu? But because we have doctors, they can help our bodies get better. He nodded and then I said, that is what cancer is like. Mommy had cancer in her body but it's not like the flu, it's not something you can get. But I needed the doctor to get it out so I could get better. Sometimes doctors can't get all the cancer out of people's bodies, but the doctor got all the cancer out of mommy's body with Heavenly Father's help. He was totally fine and seemed like he understood finally what had been going on. Then I said, And now the doctors are going to give me medicine to make sure the cancer doesn't come back but it's going to make me look funny. It's going to make something fall out! Do you know what it is? And he goes, "Your hair!"

I am so surprised at how much he has picked up on and so glad we talked about it. My biggest worry was that he would go to school or church and someone would say, "well my grandma died from cancer." So that's why I compared it to the flu as a way to explain that any type of sickness can be bad without a doctor's help. I hope I said the right things, but I felt like it was right. We ended the conversation laughing about how funny I would look without my hair and then I asked him if he had any more questions. He goes, "Ya...if I swallow a cherry seed...will a cherry tree grow inside me?"
Anyways- I think we're all good now! :)