Night and day

My Type-A personality has always made me one of those people that obsesses over what was going on ____ ago. You may have gleaned that from this blog here, here, and here, for example.

Let me illustrate:

Just an hour ago, I was snuggling my sweet baboo.
Four years ago, Doug and I were in Spain, on our honeymoon.
Six years ago, we were on the beach in Thailand.

Things have been awesome lately: Harrison has been pumped up with antibiotics (resistant bacteria—here we come!), so he's been free of the various Day Care Plagues. We've been marveling at his mind. He understands so much now, and it's amazing to see it working. The words that we know he understands are mama, dada, kitty cat, sit down, no, and kiss. He loves splashing around in his pool. He laughs and smiles all the time. He's starting to wave. He goes to get his shoes when he wants to go outside (which is always), then he bangs on the screen door. He's also taken to going into my closet, picking out a handbag, and then carrying it around the house. The handbag that he chooses on any particular day doesn't seem to coordinate with his outfit, so I don't know what his criteria are. He stalks the giant towers that we build for him out of blocks and books, and then smashes into them like Godzilla destroying Tokyo. He also likes taking his extra blankies out of the wicker basket in his room and dragging them around the house. And didn't you know how fun it is to look back at them as they trail behind? Just walk looking over your shoulder and throw caution to the wind that there might be objects looming ahead that you might crash into, like, say, walls!

Things are good and I experience many, many moments of absolutely pure joy.

A year ago I could not have imagined being at this point. It was around this time last year that we began to get an inkling that the little, leaky dimple on Harrison's forehead was something serious. Something that turned out to be a nasal dermal sinus tract with an accompanying cyst. A year ago we began the seemingly endless string of visits to the hospital for the MRI, the CT scan, and consultations with the pediatric neurosurgeon and the plastic surgeon. And worst of all, a year ago, we began the tortuous waiting (waiting waiting) for an unscheduled surgery that (in the end) would result in 70 stitches, the removal of the cyst, and (thankfully) the determination that the doctors did not have to saw my little baby's skull in order to excise the tract because it ended just beyond the skin on his forehead.

The specter of this surgery and its endless dark possibilities hung over us a year ago and lingered until September 20. It clouded the entire summer and early fall, and everything that we did.

A year ago, I was angry and terrified, and there were whole months where I was unable to be completely present as Harrison's mama, because this anger and terror were constantly flickering in the back of my mind and in the depths of my heart.

What a difference a year makes.