Welcome Back, Normal

Normal changes to Not Normal very fast. You go to playgroup in the morning, and that evening they're taking you up to the Pediatric Oncology floor and you're thinking, "Wait! They must think my baby has cancer!"

Sequeing from Not Normal back to Normal happens very slowly. Imperceptibly.

Til one day, you're doing laundry. The aforementioned baby is on the floor in the laundry room, looking for things to stick in her mouth.

You're just folding laundry. Putting diapers in the dryer because the chemo is over and you don't have to use disposables anymore. You fold a blankie and think, hmmm, I don't need to keep stacks of blankies around. I was just using them for when Little Warrior threw up and she hasn't in more than a month.

And then you think, hey, this has been the first week since before January 18th for us to not have to go to doctor's office.

It's not Old Normal. It's New Normal. New Normal has meds thrice a day and scans every three months.

And you never ever make the joke you used to about how with your first child, everything is sterilized and you're all about safety, and by the fourth, you figure it's survival of the fittest.

But it feels familiar.

It feels like Normal.