“nummy” mommy.  Gotta love grilled corn on the cob!!!  Food of summer..

As you can see by the title that I chose for lack of a better word I’m going to update on “stuff”.  First and foremost, Ethan is doing great.  He continues to amaze us with his language growth and comprehension.  Some of his cute phrases are “yeah, sure”, “oh boy”, “oh gosh”, “that’s funny”.  He also now knows that mommy’s name is Pam and that his last name is Shepard.  It’s so darn cute to hear this.  Although I would prefer that he not call me Pam…I still like mommy.  Whenever we talk about Jimm’s grandma, he calls her “Doogan” instead of Grandma Doogan.  It’s so cute.  We pulled up in front of her house last week and said “Doogan’s house!  Here we are!!!”.  He speaks pretty clearly too.  Most people can understand what he says with the exception of a few words andn sentences.  We have daily conversations in which Jimm and I have to be the voices of Sammy and Elmo.  Elmo usually lives at Grammy’s house but came to visit us last week for a few days.  He is now back at Grammy’s but we missed him last night and had to call to make sure he was ok.  Ahhh…the life of a 2 year old.

On another note, I almost lost my job due to the state budget crisis but I was offered another position at the same agency in a different program.  It was such a relief after a few weeks of updating my resume and looking for jobs yet again.  They had to wait to find out whether they would be able to fill the open position due to the cutbacks and financial strains that this non-approved budget has caused.  I know many people…friends and family both that are out of jobs or could potentially be out of a job soon due to this craziness.  Please pray that our politicians in IL will get it straight sometime soon!

Jimm’s company, Assurepath, is taking off now.  His business partner recently quit his full time job in order to pursue expanding this business.  We’re excited to see what’s going to happen in the future with this company.

That’s about it for our lives right now…..as if the possibility of losing my job wasn’t enough excitement in our lives, right?

So a little belated, but still heartfelt.  Jimm was actually driving down to southern Illinois on Sunday, so we celebrated Father’s Day at my parents house.  This isn’t the greatest picture in the world, but at least we’re all looking at the camera!  Ethan enjoyed hanging out with my parents, Uncle Mike and my Aunt Judy.  He had fun playing with all of his newly acquired garage sale items that my parents got him last week.  New cars, a little janitorial cart so that he can help grandma clean, and a table/chairs.  So much fun!

Hallelujah!  No rain.  Thanks, God.

Shhh.  Mom, don’t move.  There’s a skirl (squirrel).

Um, are you there God? It’s me, Ethan.

This park stuff makes me tired.  Water break please.

Look, mom!  Da plane, da plane!

What you lookin’ at tree?  You’re not so tough!

My “pose” for mom.  Sigh.

Oh, mom these wood chips are cool.  Forget the slide, swings and monkey bars!

Hope your Sunday was as beautiful and fun as ours!!!!

When I took this picture today it made me realize that I haven’t really posted about Ethan’s dog, Sammy, for awhile.  Sammy has now become Ethan’s best friend.  He goes everywhere with him (in the house, luckily we’ve been able to convince him to stay home), “helps” Ethan get up off of the floor, eats with us at dinner and even “tickles” Ethan’s toes.  On several occasions Jimm and I will be sitting on the couch and all of a sudden we hear Ethan talking to someone and he’s teaching Sammy how to count to ten or telling him what’s on his flash cards.  He definitely has to sleep with Sammy, that’s a must.  He gives Sammy hugs and kisses and makes sure Sammy is ok if he “falls down” or gets “bumped in the head”.  Too cute.

I received an email from my mother in law stating that “it has been 12 days since your last update”.  I know, I’m sorry.  I apologize to all of you who still check in here often.  Facebook has kind of taken over my computer time.  Moving on, though, we celebrated our niece’s b-day, nephew’s b-day and Ethan’s all in one day last weekend.  Of course my son made out really well again and we now have a 4 foot basketball hoop sitting in our living room thanks to Grammy and Papa.  I think that they temporarily forgot we live in a townhouse and not a house.  I’ll forgive them this time.  Ethan could care less about the clothes he received but mommy is thankful.  The kids had a blast playing together and Ethan loves “the park” at Uncle Dave’s house.  His favorite cousin by far, though, is Tim.  And I think Tim loves it too!  They are the only boy cousin’s and I love the fact that he looks up to Tim already.  Well, here are a few pics.  I hope that my next post won’t be so far apart from this one!

Mom, you said I was getting presents– these are clothes.  Ugh.

Ethan sitting ON his box that the bball hoop came in.  Yeah, it’s that big.

Just look at the picture on the box…it’s huge!

Bring on that cake!!!!

Agh…stop the singing –let’s just eat the cake already!

Tim helped Ethan blow out the candle….so sweet.

And here’s my cutie.  He’s laying on me right now watching his shows before bed.  Love it.

We celebrated Ethan’s birthday yesterday since his actual birthday was in the middle of the week.  But of course we couldn’t let his actual birthday go by without some kind of celebration:

He got some golf clubs, stickers, clothes and memory cards!

And of course had to see if he got everything out of the bag.  Ethan, where are you?

Then we celebrated Thomas the train style on Saturday at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  I was feeling somewhat ambitious and my friend Jess inspired me to try and bake Ethan’s cake.  However, when the cake pan came from Amazon I quickly changed my mind and plans.  Our friend Sharon at church is a wonderful baker and so we asked her to step in and save the day!  Boy am I glad….

The train was “3-D”….I’m not that ambitious!

Sharon did a great job though!  Thank you!

Party balloons Thomas style.

Leading Grandpa around pre-party.  I think he was ready for a nap before the party started (Grandpa that is..).

They are best buds.

Grandpa, Grandma and the birthday boy!

Here’s my mom, my cousin Sara’s baby Isla, and my cousin Lucy.

After a BBQ style lunch it was time to open presents.  This was the note in an empty box for Ethan.  Which led to…

His favorite present ever!  DRUMS from Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Mike.  Now we’re “those neighbors”!

He also got a harmonica, maracas and a tambourine.  We could start a band or take over worship on Sunday mornings!  Watch out Faye and Steve!

After presents and cake, it was time to go out and play.  Ethan also got a tee ball set from cousin Sara:

But Uncle Mike and mommy had more fun with that.  Sara, Gavin and Lucy also played!

This is what happens when you get up at 6am and party hard:

Superboy napped from 5pm-6:30pm and then went to bed at 8:15pm with no problems.  Someone a little tired, perhaps?

Great birthday, great birthday boy, wonderful day!  Now another party with the other side of the family next week!  Whoo Hoo!

Well, it’s here.  I am now the proud mommy of a 2 year old boy.  How did this happen?  Spare me a recount of that day two years ago, it was a rhetorical question.  I know exactly how it happened but I’m not too sure how these first two years went by so freakin fast!  Ethan was born at 2:22am but Jimm and I were just talking about how it felt like it was in the middle of the night after a VERY long day (but the day was actually two days and we were on our 3 rd day in the hospital).  I was so nervous when he made his appearance that he would not be ok due to me being induced.  He was also not ready to come out yet and I was so afraid something was going to be wrong.  But to my surprise and enjoyment he weighed 6 pounds and his APGAR scores were 9!  Pretty good for being premature.

As many of you know I have battled with the feelings of inadequacy and guilt because of being diagnosed right before he was born.  But those feelings have grown into acceptance of my downfalls and the desire to be a better mommy by learning, reading, and experiencing the mistakes, trials and errors.  I have also kept a very close eye on my baby regarding his growth and development.  Many have called me paranoid but I didn’t want him to fall behind especially when there were things we could help him with at an early age.  We put him into physical therapy and it helped tremendously.  Even though he only saw Ms. Diane once a week, she also helped Jimm, my mom and I learn different things to help him catch up.  He was walking at 14 months, which all in all isn’t really “behind”.  If it had taken any longer it would have been, but now he is running, almost jumping, climbing and is becoming very independent.  His new favorite word is “away” when he wants to do something on his own!

His speech was also something that I was concerned about, but now we can’t get him to shut up! :-)  He is putting sentences together more now.  “mommy get it”.  “mommy hold hand”.  “daddy sit down”.  He gets concepts like no other kid I’ve seen (well, I’m just a little biased!).  He can now tell you what color something is even if it’s not right in front of him.  “grandpa truck red”, “bob truck white”, “papa tractor green”.  He loves going to the library and getting one of the backpacks that they have there filled with themed items and books.  Right now he has one with a farm theme.  It has several books with farm themes, a maze board, a pig puppet and a DVD. 

As for being a mommy.  Wonderful, amazing, exhausting, heart wrenching (when they are in pain), unconditional, never ending, fun, enlightening, educational…did I mention amazing? ;-) 

Happy 2nd. Birthday Ethan.  I love you very much.

I’m sitting here on my couch next to my son who is watching his “shows” before going to bed in a little while.  I don’t know what I was expecting to feel about today being this significant anniversary of being a breast cancer survivor for 2 years now….but this definitely wasn’t it.  I honestly don’t feel much at all.  Don’t get me wrong.  I realize that what I have been through and where I am at right now is a triumph and victory and I am SO thankful for the extra years that God has given me.  But I also don’t think about being a survivor every day nor do I talk about it every day.  A big difference is that I am now at a job where no one really knows about my medical history except for one of my co-workers who I share an office with and my supervisor.  That’s it.  Out of a large organization with several offices in the Chicagoland area.  So for me it was somewhat of a new beginning.  Not that I needed one or that I desired one, but it’s just worked out that way.  Let me try to explain better.

At my previous job I was extremely close to my co-workers mostly because we had gone through so much together both personally and professionally.  I am still in contact with them and in fact I went out to lunch with them about two months ago.  They know my entire history because they experienced it with me.  They encouraged me, supported me, talked to me, prayed with me and were just there with a shoulder to cry on when need be.  They went through my miscarriage with me, the 3 deaths in my family within 1 1/2 months, my pregnancy with Ethan, my diagnosis, my chemo/radiation/herceptin treatment, and every milestone of Ethan’s first 1 1/2 years of his life.

The flip side of the support/encouragement/friendship is that it was always with me.  Every day I came to work my co-workers were concerned about my health and progress.  Which I completely appreciated.  But as I got better and my treatment was finally completed I almost wanted a fresh start so that I wasn’t always “Pam the breast cancer victim/survivor”.  Not that any of them made me feel that way by any means but EVERYTHING happened to me while at that job.  I know why and it makes total sense.  God provided me with the support that I needed at that time of my life.  But then when everything was working out for me in my personal life it was time to move on from that job.  I didn’t want to leave and it wasn’t by choice that I found this new job.  But I’m wondering now if it wasn’t God’s doing so that I could move on in my life and just be Pam, wife to Jimm and mother to Ethan.  And if I so choose to tell people about my triumph then I will.  But if I don’t then I am just “normal”.  There I said it.  The need to be “normal”.  I’ve written about tests coming back normal and liking the sound of that word.  But what if I was “normal” again.  With no health history, with no anxiety about future risks, with no need to remind the nurses and lab techs to only take my blood pressure in my right arm or take blood out of my right arm, no need to freak out every time I have a mammogram, no nightmares about me dying before my son reaches all of his milestones in life, no worries about a possible second pregnancy if that’s what we choose, no worries about passing along my health history to my child, etc. —just normal.

So, in saying all of that I hope to shed a little light on why I don’t really feel all that much today.  For six months now I have been at a new job where I feel somewhat “normal”.  My family, friends and church family all ask me occasionally how things are going or how I’m feeling but otherwise I walk through my day, week, month without mention of the word cancer—well, for the most part.  And at my doctor appointment last week I was given a clean bill of health with only minor tests to complete, a good outlook for the future and my doctor telling me that I just need another mammogram in ONE year from now.  Nice.  Normal.

And on Wednesday I’m sure I will have another update on what it’s like to have a 2 year old, the things I’ve learned as a mom, what I still expect to learn, what I will never learn and what it will take me years to figure out.