only once

I've felt so angry today.

I woke up after weird vivid dreams (Dave Matthews called up and praised me as "so amazing"--and wanted me to be the special hander-out on the stage of special sculpted ice cubes to select audience members from a silver tray at his next concert the following afternoon. Unfortunately, there was a bomb scare that turned into an actual bombing at the restaurant where we went to breakfast, so we had to spend the day in the cellar of the store next door, and so I missed that hot opportunity, and even the appointment we had to lunch with our favorite nurse, Pat) and, thinking in my drowsy bed, the weight of the next year hit so hard. I think, although I've always intellectually known otherwise, that my little heart has been thinking of chemo as an event rather than a 9-months-plus process. As in, "chemo will make him lose his hair, and then it will grow back." No. Chemo has made him lose most of his hair and then they'll increase the dose and then all of his hair and his lashes and eyebrows will be gone and then it still won't work enough and so they'll switch to something else that gives him mouth sores even though he escaped those with the current combination and then he will find our mother-son breastfeeding nourishing bonding too painful to find solace or nourishment there and we'll have to tape an NG (feeding) tube to his cheek that has lost that newborn down, that kissably soft velvet that graces the youngest and sweetest cheeks and now they'll be red with tape and Tegaderm irritation and he will still be losing weight and because he is a baby his memory will be short and there will be lots of joyful moments and he won't care that he missed out on crawling because his shoulder didn't work right and even if he loses function or parts of his arm he'll never miss it because he won't remember but I will because he will only be 6 months once and only 7 months once (tomorrow!) and because frankly age 6-12 months is the most cherubically beautiful baby curls thick lashed soft cheeked roly-tumbling time of your entire life and I don't count on my children's futures much anymore, just their present, but I thought looking a couple months ahead wasn't really tempting fate but I guess I was wrong and still I already miss you so much, fat and healthy golden-curled 10-month boy, crawling around my house and wreaking havoc with all of your sisters' tiny treasures. I just feel so cheated.

So I created us a moment, and we shared chocolate today. Because you're only going to be 6 months old and tasting chocolate for the first time once.

Remember what was in that wrapper? Oh, yes.(Audrey learned to crawl driven by her desire for Scrabble tiles. I'm starting to test the same principle.)

I did all of those things that are supposed to help: I took a long walk with a neighbor trying to find solace in an empathetic ear and a couple of miles of exercise, and two different friends from church took Reuben shifts. I had breaks and got exercise and made unpacking progress. But the storm in my chest has been surging all day and the canyons in my forehead are steep. I've had a hard time feeling the joy in my son's today and that, too, builds my anger. Because I might as well be mad at myself, too. To sleep, then. Reuben is just starting to fuss and I can just leave all those bathroom boxes in the hall for one more day...