hair pt. 2 {my daughter}

Most of my anxiety about shaving my head/losing my hair was about how my daughter would take it. She's 2.5 which I know is still very young, but she is a lil too smart for her own good. I tend to over worry (yes, I'm that extreme) about her lil psyche in every aspect of her life : taking away the paci, potty training, Daddy deploying, etc. I'm always concerned about how she'll cope with transitions and how to best keep her routine the same. Getting diagnosed with cancer was the most heart wrenching thing in my life; not for me, but for my concern for my daughter. Would she now get it too? How would she cope with me coping? Would she be scared? How would her behavior change? I have worried way more about HER than I have myself through this entire process. But from that day on, I vowed to keep everything the same as possible for her so as not to disrupt her life any more than was necessary.

In many ways my infertility struggle was a blessing; she has been so used to "mommy's going to the doctor" for over a year now. Add in 3 surgeries in 3 months and she's now completely comfortable and familiar with the hospital too. What an unanticipated blessing! She's handled all of that so well and I couldn't be more thankful for how she's coped thus far. For the most part we've just been telling her that Mommy's sick and the doctors are helping her to get better and she's been fine with that explanation.

When my hair started falling out I decided it was time to talk to her about it. Luckily my dear friend Emily gifted me with this amazing book:

It really is the most adorable book ever and details how the mommy loses her hair from cancer. However, we haven't even used the word "cancer" with her because that's a lil too deep. And we don't want to tell her the medicine is making my hair fall out because we do not want her to be afraid of medicine from now on. We taught her the word "bald" and talked about how Mommy would now be bald like her baby doll. She seemed to enjoy/understand somewhat the book but kept asking "Where'd her hair go?!" over and over. She was clearly concerned that the mommy was bald but she just had to know WHERE it was. 

So as my own hair started coming out, I put some in a baggie to physically show her where my hair was. We collected quite a bit of it and I kept telling her "This is where Mommy's hair is because it's coming out". She seemed pretty content at that! 

When I finally shaved it, I came home with a wig on and we again read the book and discussed it. I then took my wig off to show her my bald head. I had tears in my eyes as I was showing her, but she just look at me wide-eyed and kinda giggled. She said "Mommy's hair is bald!" and went on about her way! I had to wipe those tears away quick because clearly this was not a sad moment; her strength became my strength! I was dumbfounded. Here I had been overcome with anxiety about this entire thing, and my child laughs because she was not bothered by it! Oh how I love her; I'm amazed daily by her loving heart and sweet & innocent resiliency. She really likes to rub my "soft hair" aka my bald head, and she gets concerned when I cover it up with wigs or hats. For some reason she likes to see it at all times! 

Here we are in our darling matching caps -- thank you Emily! She was so excited that we matched & she has one of her own :) 

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

Proverbs 31:30